Scratch Build – In Progress BORDERLANDS... Project: Scrapbot

Background

Borderlands is set on the planet of Pandora. Lured by its apparent vast deposits of minerals, several colonization ships journey to the planet and create a society there. However, they soon discover that there is little else of value on the planet save for the presence of alien ruins. Those who are rich enough to do so, leave the planet, leaving the rest of the population to scavenge for themselves. While some isolated settlements were formed, much of the rest of the colonists became bandits, living out in the barren wastelands or trash heaps across the planet. Further investigation of the alien artifacts leads to the discovery of "The Vault". A supposed treasure trove alien artifacts, technology, and of insurmountable wealth. But those that had discovered it were wiped out by a protective force, leaving few clues as to its location or purpose but creating a myth of its marvelous treasures.

My adventure begins elsewhere as I will reveal in the following months.

I welcome you all to...




STARDATE 20091 (Monday)

Having landed on Pandora only a few days ago, I came upon a Scrapbot, in pretty bad shape, lifeless to tell the truth...
I managed to find a photo maker, this planet seems to have been depleted of most of the human resources I have come to accept as a part of life, yet here I am on this wasteland with a Scrapbot at my feet...

Lifeless...





It Seems to have suffered a crushing blow which resulted in its death. With most of it's circuits missing or ripped out and scattered about its lifeless shell, I know this will be an impossible task to repair and rebuild, but with persistence I shall reach my goal.


With not much in the way of tools I begin to make plans on how to repair this Scrapbot, these are some of the images I have come up with.


Some rough sketches...
Although not the best of builds these arms will serve their purpose.



Here you can see how the wheel will be attached and what the top should look like.

STARDATE 20091 (Tuesday)

This planet is fairly barren, sometimes I venture out in my combat vehicle, with my sniper rifle in tow, looking for scraps and occasionally taking down the strange beasts the inhabit the area.

I was able to find some drawing materials in what was once a Lab of sorts. I spent the night through to the next morning working on some improved designs for the Scrapbot I will be attempting to build.

Technical Drawings...


FRONT


TOP


LEFT+RIGHT


BACK

Using the photo maker I found and repaired, I was able to piece all my drawings together, so that you will be able to see what I hope to achieve.



I will keep sending my logs back home so that you can see the progress I have made.

Seth.

 

Very interesting.
I subscribe.

 

Cool cool!
Like a mix between wall-e mods and your style!

 

Sub'd
Just the title did it for me

 

Lolz, you don't even catch your breath before starting a new one! Awesome game and most likely an awesome build with you at the helm

 

Looking nice .. hoping to see more of this .. One of my favorites games is this

 

I like this novel approach to modding!
Although I haven't played the game, it is still interesting (it is on my list)

 

I like the logging style on top of the mod! keep up the good work

 

Sweet! I was wondering how long it would be before someone based a mod on one of these. I also see it might be considered SFF. That's extra cool.







(Say, since it's SFF, you post it at losias.net too... We'd love to have it! )

 

Awesome Idea there dude!! will be sure to follow this build.

The best would be if you build in a button on the side that makes ur case say stuff like:
"C'mon everybody! Look at me, I'm dancing!!"

 

Sub'd. Loved the game, love your style and this looks to be an amazing log

 

Awesome. I just love the storyline

Based upon the material you succeeded in producing with the fixed photomaker this reconstruction of the Scrapbot indeed looks promising

Subscribed..

 

awesome, im liking this mod!

 

can't wait to see this one progress. Me likes Borderlands

 

STARDATE 20091 (Friday)

I got off the bus at Firestone today in search of panels to build my Scrapbot, this is what I saw the moment I stepped off the bus...



I took this shot with my photo maker, dosn't look too welcoming let me tell you and if that wasn't enough to discourage me from continuing on, then this was going to...



Frightening isn't it...

Did I make 25?.

So I strolled into town, not much of a town though, Medic and a Weaponry joint, not much life either, I missed home, I missed the human contact.

So I walked around the scrap piles fishing around for whatever caught my eye so I could begin this project, and after some time (which can be a long time when you have no time piece on your person) I discovered a Panel, made from a metal I had never seen before, it was light and fairly shiny, but it had a fair amount of strength in it.
I thought to myself...:This will be perfect".

I made my way through town and found a broken down combat truck, RED, with nitro tanks, what more could one ask for, a few hours and some tinkering and she was ready to go.



Isn't she a beauty??

So I strapped the piece of metal to the back, jumped in and drove to New Haven, a town I had finally established myself in...


Don't mind the bum in my chair, that's just Scooter, he tinkers as well.

I layed my materials out and with crude tools that lay about the workshop I began to hack into the metal piece.

After some time, I was pretty pleased with my results...




As you can see, its not the best considering the tools I have to work with, but its a begining, and there's more to follow.

....
....... ........

I just got word from a guy somewhere east about another piece of metal much like the one I had today, I'll be heading out in the morning to get it, so more updates soon.

Thanks to you all for replying in my need, its good to know that the people on earth find this interesting, I keep you posted, and as soon as I have my Scrapbot, I'll be heading home with it in tow.

Seth.

 

This is great! Keep up the entertaining work!

 

You're just a moddin machine Gavin, awesome project theme

 

liking this a lot! love the game - can;t wait to see how this goes!

 

Worklog Update

I have sped through the paneling work , so I could get a mock up of the size for this build, so I can work out the framing for this project, which is beginning to prove its going to be a difficult task, as its doing my head in.




I have tried my best to not use my nibbler as much as I did on my previous project , mostly due to the fact that I have damaged both my index and middle finger on my right hand. (I alternate from left to right when one hand gives in).

So for the better part, everything has been cut with a Jigsaw and the filed down, the exceptions are the front panel grill and the DVD rom face plate.

The pictures above are the front and rear of the rear panel.



As I don't have a bending machine I'm going to wing the next bit of the build, this is the recessed part of the front panel, which the concept will also be used for the side panels.
The bottom part will recess to 12mm and the top 24mm, similar to how it looks in the game.
It'll make more sense when you actually see it, I'm finding it hard to take what I've visualized and turn it into words, so if your slightly confused, don't feel bad, I'm more so than you are.


Top and Bottom parts, cut and filed.


From this photo you should be able to see that one overlaps the other, this is how you will see it in the final build stages, but with a 12 and 24mm spacing between each.


Like so...


Also cut out the left and right sides.




Quickly put it together, being held together by Gaffa Tape, just wanting to make sure it looks ok and from this point, I have to work out the frame and wheel placement, which is going to be a feat on it own, having to also compete with the motherboard tray that doesnt fit and the PSU vs. The Wheel problem, but I'm sure I'll have a brain explosion soon and this task wont be so difficult.

More to follow soon.

Thanks for the replies

Seth

 

STARDATE: 20091 (Monday)

Seemed to have lost communication with Planet Earth over the last few weeks, but have found a mechanic that has fixed the telecomunication device that allows me to Hyper mail back to Earth, which is really a blessing.

Sandstorms out here can really mess with things electrical on Pandora, so I've been hiding in a Storage Bunker, having moved most of my work into it, which also keeps me free from alien attack, having recently put silencers on most of my tools I can now basically work through the long nights and short days without too much distraction.

Though the last few days I have been working in one of the largest mines on Pandora, a bit of extra money goes a long way out here, and has helped in aquiring new contacts for exotic parts deemed lost through the abandonment of the planet.

I had to redo the front panel, as I cut it too short, and the entire shell seemed to twist under the extra strain...


New Image of front panel, using this as an example of the old one I had previously cut out, what I had done was remove 60mm off the top panel, and not realising that when I assembled all the panels the alignment of all panels including the top were completely out, so I fashioned another one rather quickly.









Using some titanium tape I've roughly pieced the panels together and they all match up quite nicely.

I met an odd fellow in my travels who was selling odd and extremely rare equipment at an underground meet of sorts, think of it as the black market of the planet, even with only a handful of people here, most being scavangers, there are some that like to been known simply as scavenger pirates, and they don't really have names just initials, and this bloke was no exception...We'll call him MNPCTECH.

In the galaxy this is one of the most notorious scavenger pirates out there, no one knows where he gets his stuff, but its the best and usually extremely rare.

Now I cant show you the exact item I got but I did make a copy and change it rather slightly to suit my purposes, I will attempt to show you when this project draws to a close, but please do not allow this to get into the hands of anyone else, Scrapbots are rare these days and they too fetch extreme prices on the space market.



This is a duplicate with a slight change in it and will act as a guard on the rear panel , as the accelerfan can be quite dangerous to ones fingers.

ROBOT ARMS...


These are my templates for the area where the robot arms will be attached and it's been quite an annoyance trying to source the parts to built them.

I've found bus type vehicle, similar to the on I came to the planet on, less the hyper drive that flew me here, so this is quite simply a Bus with a beat up engine and four wheels, that I have managed to repair and convert into a mobile work shop, so now I can travel by day when safe and work by night when the aliens are feeding, this bus is like a fortress on wheels and has withstood a huge amount of a beating when the aliens raided my encampment a few nights ago, so I feel relatively safe in here...

Using technology and simple tools I began work on the side panels and arm pieces...


After a few days of work...


A few more days....and I went out scavenging for parts and found some extremely light weight tubing, these will act as the shoulders to my robot arms (not mine but the scrapbots)



Slowly piecing it all together...


I'm still a long way off completing the first arm, but I hope to have a more in depth report on the construction of the crafting of these arms..

I can hear the aliens out side of my fortress, its time to gear up and get my happy trigger finger some action, I rarely sleep and sometimes slaughtering a mass of aliens has brought me some rare materials that I will be using in this project.
The good thing about these aliens is sometimes they hold unbound treasure from within, not being able to injest our technologies.

I must remember to take some more photos of the nights blood bath , it truly is quite remarkable to see what they leave behind after a nights gun fight.

Signing off...

Seth