Brick replica project: SDF-1 _Macross_ from "Super Dimension Fortress Macross"/"Robotech" Phillip Thorne Wednesday, 26 June 2002 Thursday, 4 July 2002 Saturday, 21 February 2004 From the early-'80s Tatsunoko anime "Super Dimension Fortress Macross", the alien space battleship _Macross_ (called merely the "SDF-1" in the American adaptation, "Robotech") is a slab of armor somewhere between one-half- and one-mile in length. Its forward third consists of a pair of "gun booms": devices that generate and focus a ship-vaporizing discharge of orange energy. The booms normally form a single flat forward deck, but when in use, they rotate outward, their dogleg shape opening an accumulator gap between them. The SDF-1 was an alien ship which crashed on Earth, sans living crew, derelict. It was refurbished by humans and given a typically human paint scheme. Events led to the attachment of two 1500-foot aircraft carriers, the _Daedalus_ (blunt-nosed) and _Prometheus_ ("can opener"). Later, the engineering staff discovered the entire ship could transform -- a dangerous maneuver required to "hotwire" the engines to the main guns, after the connecting systems were destroyed. Coincidentally, the transformation, plus the two attached ships, gave the entire ship a humanoid form. *** My motive in building this replica, was to make it fully articulated and transformable. Two non-transformable plastic model kits (which I own) were released by Revell in the mid-'80s, during the series' heydey; there was also a large transforming toy (which I do not). Midway through construction, Mega-Bloks introduced its Blok-Bots line, which utilize new 2-DOF ratcheted joint elements. These have proven *extremely* useful in building stiff, posable joints in the replica. Because they're socketed, designed to pop apart, they're also perfect for the elbow joints where the aircraft carriers attach. Because the joint-elements permit it, I've added a non-canonical extra DOF in the gun boom's second joint. The tip of the gun boom is canonically grey, not black, but at the time I was reserving my grey sloped elements for another project. The biggest challenge (and one I may bypass) is the joint between the central fuselage and the gun/shoulder/engine on each side. Canonically, the gun/shoulder and engine/leg units slide apart, on a sort of telescoping "lumbar" joint which is pivoted to the midhull; sliding joints are, of course, the most challenging to build. There would additionally be massive stress placed on the pivot. I may simply connect the two units independently to the midhull, and for transformation, manually swap them. *** 2004, new ideas... the 8012-"Super Battle Droid" set contains eight sets of ratchet-joints. (The socket-half is used in the Spybotics sets, and the same ratchet-design is used in the Galidor figures.) These are more compact than the Mega-Bloks ratchets. The lumbar joint: I can't think of a way to lock a telescoping joint into its two end-positions; but I can duplicate the motion with a hinged Z-joint. The shoulder and hip sections would end up moving through more than one dimension. *** macross_01.jpg - gun boom, carriers, reference models. macross_022.jpg - gun boom, forward. macross_026.jpg - gun boom, outboard. macross_031a.jpg - gun boom, starboard shoulder, _Prometheus_ and _Daedalus_. macross_032a.jpg - _Daedalus_ attached to right shoulder. macross_033a.jpg - gun boom, rotated into weapons position. macross_034a.jpg - extra joint I've added. macross_035a.jpg - gun boom and chest, in transformed position. The plastic model kits don't approach the detail in the original animation, in which the bridge module is festooned with spars, antennas, hanging cables, and lights. I've tried to approximate the complexity with some hinges, hooks, and control-levers. macross_bridge_01a.jpg - forward right dorsal.