Millennium Falcon Theater

It's happened to the best of us. Laying on your back, arms outstretched, holding your tablet and trying to watch a show or a movie, and the inevitable blood loss to your arms makes your hands slip for a fraction of a second, and... the tablet ends up smacking you in the face.

Here is a remedy for that! A tablet holder that allows you to lay back and watch your favorite things, without having to worry about a facefull of tablet. And best of all, it looks like the cockpit from the Millennium Falcon, so when you're not watching movies you can pretend to be doing the Kessel Run.

Materials to build this:

5 - 1"x4"x8' board lumber
1 - 4'x8' 1/4" sheet plywood
1 - 1"x11" board lumber
Pocket hole screws
Black and grey paint

The first step was to figure out the dimensions for the dome. Since the dome was based around using it with a tablet, I set my measurements to the size of the tablet I was going to be using, and then found some schematics of the Millennium Falcon to get an idea of the scaling.

I wanted the dome to be far enough away from your face that is still comfortable, but close enough to still be able to see everything on the screen.

I decided to make the front of the cockpit 22" across. Once I decided on that measurement, it was just a matter of using pictures as a reference, and then scaling the rest of the cockpit.

I ended up roughing out what pieces I would need, and their dimensions.

I started with the front of the dome, cutting out the 22" from the 1"x11" board, then drawing 6" angles at 30 degrees to make the shape of the front.

I cut all the main 4" pieces I needed for the base of the dome, ripped 2" strips for the pieces that connect the base to the top and shape the windows, and 1" strips for all the angled connection pieces of the base.

After cutting out the rest of the pieces I needed from the 1"x4" boards, I took some of the scrap and square cut a few pieces to act as sliders for the tablet to slide into. I then connected those to the back side of the top piece.

This is the easiest and funnest step: Grab some lightsabers and battle away (preferably while Duel of the Fates plays in the background)

The middle section required that all of the pieces framing the windows needed 1/4" deep slots cut into them to allow the 1/4" plywood to slide into each section later. After each piece had the groove cut out, I started to assemble the frame for the window pieces.

As the pieces were being assembled, I started to measure, shape, and cut all the pieces I needed for the windows out of the 1/4" plywood - making sure that each piece fit in its section.

I painted all the window pieces black, then started to assemble each of the window pieces into the frame of the middle section. After each piece was in, I cut the last angle pieces out of the 2" strips, and connected the front of the dome to the rest of the base.

With it all assembled, I taped off the window sections, and painted the hull grey.

The last thing to do was to make the slot for the tablet to fit in through the top. I drilled, then chiseled, then used a dremel to even out a slot just big enough for the tablet to slide down into the tracks on the inside of the top piece that I made earlier.

Now that it's all done, we could lay back, put on a movie, and enjoy! Now with no risk of a crushed face!

Now you know how to do it, watch it being made!

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