Building a Mechanical Baby Grogu Automaton

INSTRUCTABLE IS A WORK IN PROGRESS

In 2019 The Mandalorian introduced a series of new characters to the franchise. Among them Din Djarin, The Client, Cara Dune and likely the most popular of them all, Baby Grogu.

Baby Grogu brought a certain quality to the show that was immediately recognizable. It it appeared that the diminutive pre-jedi was a practical puppet. An on-set object that the other performers could interact with.

This gives a familial quality to the character, he wiggles and moves exactly as another legacy Star Wars Character that we are familiar with. Master Yoda.

There are intrinsic characteristics to an animatronic, or a puppet that are instantly recognizable, and impossible to replicate. You do not recognize Master Yoda without them.

Seeing this mechanical character in a modern Star Wars production stuck in my brain.

I set out to create a mechanical automaton that would illustrate the spirit of this mechanical puppet, and represent the intrinsic flaws of a mechanically driven contraption.

OBJECTIVES

To Replicate the Character "Baby Grogu" in a mechanical form.

To Embrace the inherent flaws of the chosen materials to reproduce a vintage Christmas window display pastiche.

To Work within the constraints of limited time AND use materials I already own.

To Keep construction simple and achievable.

Check out the Video Here : https://youtu.be/dcAaTSv-whY

***Please Consider***

I did not fully document every step of the process nor will I have exact measurements. This will serve as complete an overview as I can recall. Some of the parts I used may be difficult to find. If you chose to build your own. You will have to make alterations to fit your available materials.

Also I am not an expert on the subject I solved problems as they came up.

TOOLS

Saw

Scissors

Pencil / Paper

Craft / Olfa Knife

Hot Glue Gun / Glue

Drill

Drill Bits

Soldering Iron / Solder

Hole Saw

Clay Tools

Paint Brushes

SUPPLIES

MDF Board

1/4 Plywood

Dowels

Screws

Silver Marker

Felt

Scrap Canvas

Aluminum Wire

Brass Wire

Brass Straps

Sculpey (Or Alternate Bake Clay)

1 1/2" ABS Pipe (Less Than 6")

Bolts / Nuts

Socket

Spray Adhesive

Black Foam Core

Black Paper Tape

LED Battery String Lights

Aluminum Tape

Electrical Wire

Tin Foil

Rubber Feet

Acrylic Paints

1/4 Drive Socket

Metal Scrap

Door Knob

Metal Knobs / Buttons

Salvaged Electric Motors

This is an exact moment in the show that I had chosen to replicate. While travelling Din and Grogu push each other's buttons. This moment became instantly meme-able and is the basis for this build.

Breaking down the moment we have to determine what we want to happen.

At a glance I want the following:

• Grogu Turns his head
• Grogu Lifts His Arm
• The Control Panel Light Turns On / Off
• Some Mechanical Elements of the automaton must be visible from the outside
• Cycle Repeats

This could be accomplished with an Arduino and some stepper motors, but I want the hitch-y uneven movement of driven wheels and wobbly bits.

The Head will be driven from below, turning from side to side.

The Arm will pivot at the shoulder driven by a driven wheel below.

The Control panel will be triggered from the driven lifting wheel. Conductive material will complete / break the circuit as the wheel turns.

All of these elements are visible from the outside.

It continues as long as electricity is supplied.

Some time after I completed the build I drew up some approximate drawings that I could use to explain the details.

SCALE

I knew from the beginning that I wanted to use a scrap doorknob as the basis for the head and neck of the Grogu character. That allowed me to make some decisions about how large the whole machine would be.

Using reference photos, and some measuring I decided on a rough size for all the parts compared to the bare doorknob.

BASE

All of the parts need something to connect to. I cut a base out of MDF. The size of the material is not important.

To the Underside I stuck some rubber feet to prevent scratching of surfaces.

I salvaged two electric motors and some LED's from a pair of cheap rotating holiday yard lights.

By drilling a matching hole in the MDF Base we can mount the motor at the centre of the drive wheel.

In my case, the rotating motors had keyed shafts which fit the plastic reflector that turned inside the light.

The characters and other finishes need a place to be mounted to. I wanted a tiered look to the construction. Ideally from some angles it would look pristine and complete. But from other angles it would appear rough and unfinished.

The upper deck was cut to compliment the shape of the base, with a cut out the would reveal the major drive wheel.

As surface finish is not a concern for my desired rough hewn look. I cut my Major Drive wheel out of my sanded plywood.

The upper deck and major drive wheel would be supported by dowels glued into the base and held down with screws.

Layout all the rotating parts. As the large wheel turns it will drive the mechanical arm back and forth in an arc. By attaching the head of the character to the pivot of the arm. We can create a head turn of a certain amount of degrees back and forth.

The larger your drive wheel the greater degrees the character's head will turn, a smaller drive wheel will turn the pivot in less degrees but perhaps faster.

By changing the size of the drive wheel, or the pin's fixed position, it would be possible to tune the amount of desired head turn.

The pivot is mounted to the base via a through hole, some washers and a nut. It is a long threaded bolt. The Mechanical arm is cinched between two nuts and is held in place.

The Minor motor is mounted vertically in a scrap of MDF this raises the motor enough to let the small driven wheel turn.

A hole must be cut in the upper deck so that the minor drive wheel can be seen.

The first step to sculpting the face and hands was designing the skeleton underneath. The insides must be strong enough to hold the character together and tough enough to survive a trip through the oven.

He head and neck are going to be made from the doorknob and will also make the character's shoulders.

The arms will be screwed to the doorknob flange and will pivot freely.

The 1 1/2" ABS Pipe will form the bulk of the lower body.

NOTE: I used Sculpey clay for this project. I'm sure other bake-able or air-dry clay will also work. Your Milage May Vary.

THE ARMS

The arms are made of fine wire. Several strands of wire will be twisted together. Shape fingers from strands of wire on one end, and loops on the shoulder end.

Consider how thick you need the arms to be. If they are too thick, the clay may not bake evenly. To reduce the thickness of your part, you can build up your skeleton with tin foil.

THE HEAD

The doorknob will take up most of the volume of the head. So I didn't need too much clay for this part. The ears are the tricky part. To support the ears I made the outer ear shape out of thick aluminum wire. The ear is mounted to the head by drilling a pair of holes.

I shaped the ears to be wider than the space between the holes. That way the wire will want to stay put when installed.

The next step for the ears is to build it up with a layer of tin foil. This will give the clay something to hold on to in the thinner webbed part of the ear.

Now the tough stuff.

Adding a little bit at a time, I added clay to the head until I got the approximate rough shape of the head that I liked.

From there it was just a matter of using a few different sculpting tools to refine the shape of the head until I felt it was a close enough match. I used several different reference photos of the character at different angles to give a full idea of what the sculpt should look like.

THE OVEN

I don't remember the exact temperature settings or how long the parts were supposed to be in the oven. But I followed the instructions that came with the material.

After the oven the sculpted parts were firm and after cooling ready to paint.

PAINTING

I'm most familiar with Acrylic paints, so that's what I opted to use. There are only a few parts that need to be painted by hand. All of the rest of the parts will have organic finishes, or plain materials as made.

I used a small table vice to hold the parts to be painted but you could make do without.

*NOTE - It's worthwhile to consider how close you want your machine to be seen. You can save time by reducing detail in areas that will be too small to be seen, or too far away.

For this reason I kept my paint scheme simple. I generally expect that this model will be seen from mid-distance. It's not designed for very close up.

The major areas I felt were important were the Eyes, the deep greens of skin wrinkles and folds, and the contrasty pink inside the ears.

Again referencing my collected photos served to be a good guide.

Acrylics will generally dry to a matte finish. I prefer that in this case. I considered using a mid-glossy topcoat to brighten the colour, but that may risk making the skin look "sticky" or "plastic like".

We'll return to the Green guy later when he is completely dried.

For the finished black panels of the Razor Crest, I opted to use matte black foam core.

I decided on foam core for several reasons - It's lightweight. Easy to cut. Reasonably inexpensive. And in this project, it is already uniformly coloured. In this case an even black.

There are two major parts to construct out of foam core.

DECK

This part serves as the floor for Grogu. It's cut to match the size of the plywood upper deck. It is detailed with typical Star Wars silver and raised shapes.

All of the raised shapes are cut from off cut foam core. The silver details are just traced out with reflective silver paint.

*You can use hot glue with foam core but check the temperature. If it's too hot it may just melt the foam instead.

THE INSTRUMENT PANEL

The instrument panel is more complicated looking, but when it boils down to it. It's really just a hollow rectangle, again all the detail is added on the outer surface.

Along the top I added chromed and black parts from my junk drawer.

The front panels were made separately and glued on later to accommodate LED lights.

LIGHTING BREAKDOWN

Always on Lights - The Red and Green lights and underside lights are always on.

Alternating On/Off - The minor driven wheel connects and breaks the circuit for the "switch" that Grogu presses. It is green.

Dollar Store Battery powered LED string lights provide most of the parts we need. The Battery Holder, switch and some of the LED's.

The green LED's were salvaged from the yard lights. It works just fine on battery power.

The AA Battery holder supplies power to BOTH the "Always On" LED Strings, and supplies power to the rotary contact and brushes.

Using scrap canvas and felt. Clothing is made. Hot glue is used to set the parts rapidly.

Everything is assembled. The automaton is completed.

Thanks for following along.