Last weekend, the time had finally come again: The Maker Faire Ruhr 2024 in Dortmund opened its doors.

This time I was only there as a visitor, but I took the opportunity to see Grogu and show him around a bit.

Grogu the first time "outside"

In fact, I was very lucky that it worked out, because I had only finished this first full version the day before. Also, parts of my Jedi costume had only arrived a week before and then had to be adjusted.

Youtube Video

There is a YouTube short of Grogu's first public appearance at the Maker Faire:

Meet like-minded people

It was great to meet so many like-minded people and exchange ideas. There were also a few opportunities to talk about the structure and programming of Grogu:

It was particularly exciting at the booth of the R2 builders - there were several R2-D2s and a BB-8 as well as another animatronic Grogu on display. This was also impressively detailed and especially the skin color I found very well done:

Grogu was also able to meet one or two colleagues:

First practical experience

There was also minor damage, but it was quickly repaired: For one thing, the bracket for the pressure switch was too thin and broke. However, this did not limit the function and was repaired on the same day. On the other hand, all servos suddenly failed after I had taken Grogu out of my bag and placed it on a table. This was a brief shock, but it turned out that only the pins of the ESP32 board had slipped halfway out of the breadboard when I lifted it. Of course, this was also quickly resolved.

After this first practical experience, the battery life is sufficient for about 2-3 hours of continuous use. This probably means that it makes sense to have a second battery with you for whole days.

Otherwise, everything worked great and I had a lot of nice conversations.