People love toys, and a life-size toy from your childhood is even better. I came up with the idea of Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots costumes because my friend and I are both the same size and we both love robots.
I took pictures of the actual toys and projected them onto cardboard using an opaque projector. This allowed me to get the proper shapes and proportions, because no one else had made costumes of this caliber before, so it was important we got it right.
The costumes are made from cast-off cardboard, red and blue duct tape, and rubber balls (for the rivets). My Red Rocker costume was constructed over two days as a prototype; kinks etc were ironed out and then we simply traced those shapes to make the Blue Bomber costume.
All the joints were hinged to allow for easy movement. They were a little tricky to get into but, once on, there were very manageable.
I loved making these. They are quite massive but lightweight. We had to watch each other’s back all night, though, because people tended to come up and start hitting us. Some people thought we were transformers.
awesome!
Were you guys at the 2010 FIRST Championship event in Atlanta, Georgia? If you were, I think I might have a picture with you!
do you still have templates
would like to make in metal
Any chance you could upload more pictures of these costumes onto flickr or picasa?
Ya, if you still had the templates, that would be a lifesaver!
Just to let Anonymous 10-28-2010 know, these guys were not the Rock’em Sock’em Robots you saw at Championships. Those are the mascots for my team 3381 Droid Rage. These guys were a lot smarter at how they made theirs. Also, I would be interested in a copy of those templates if you would be willing to part with a PDF copy or something