Replicas aren’t cool. You know what’s cool? A billion replicas. Working replicas. That’s why we love this Wall-E robot. It looks spot on, but it’s also a functioning robot. It doesn’t compress trash, but it does move on its treads. It also plays sounds and music from the film, and even makes us feel feelings just like the real Wall-E.
This Wall-E bot was put together by Mike McMaster and his Wall-E Builders Club. He’s also a member of a group that builds working R2-D2 replicas. Basically speaking, Mike McMaster is nothing less than a geeky national treasure.
Construction on McMaster’s Wall-E actually started before the film was released, and it raised some interesting problems: Mainly, the issue that the “real” Wall-E is a CGI construct and not a physical object like R2-D2. That meant things like scale were difficult to pin down, because as McMaster points out in the video, Wall-E’s scale actually changes during the film.
McMaster used objects with known sizes that Wall-E holds in the movie as reference points to help size him out, and the finished product is just gorgeous. Wall-E is still a work in progress, though, so McMaster isn’t through with him yet. Considering how well this replica moves and sounds like the real thing, it’s hard to imagine what he might try to add next. Maybe a working trash compactor?
Finally, I didn’t mean what I said at the top of this story. Replicas are cool.
(via Tested)
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