A domed head.

A cylindrical body covered with a silver and blue plastic exterior.

Little wheels for movement.

Who doesn’t recognize R2-D2 from the well-known film, “Star Wars?”

The famous robot was on campus during the Robotics Club’s robotics exhibition on Dec. 6.

“It was nice to see it [R2D2] in action,” Robotics Club president Jason Irie said.

Participants voted for the club members’ individual works, but not for R2-D2, which was only for display.

The members of the club built the famous “Star Wars” droid to make something fun and creative.

Irie said three members were involved in building R2-D2: himself, industrial engineering major Roy Villasor and electrical engineering major Joshua Molina.

Irie explained their creative process started with coming up with the design, then came building and programming.

“We primarily focus on trying to come up with a design,” Irie said. “Then, we try to manufacture the design to see how well it works and make adjustments.”

Villasor, 22, worked on R2-D2’s arms. He said it was the second project he worked on as a member of the club.

“[We] started first just with drafting [the arms] on paper, then we made a smaller prototype of it,” Villasor said. “And we had to scale it up using bigger gears, then we had to install it into the thing.”

Among the overall process, the three members especially struggled with getting R2-D2 fully body-printed in the programming process.

Molina, 24, said he mainly focused on 3D modeling.

“The obvious example is like figuring out where we can find those resources to how we could possibly do this,” Molina said. “It took me four months.”

Molina said it is his second semester to be involved in creating robots and said he started learning the process by himself after he was intrigued by 3D modeling.

Irie said he helped the two members and watched them work on creating the team robot.

“For the most part, I just provide my input with Joshua on how it looked in the 3D model,” Irie said. “And I help work with Roy to make mechanics and get the movement down and making sure it’s working properly.”

The robotics exhibition is not the only activity the Robotics Club joins.

Irie explained what the club is like and how the members work on their robots.

“We specialize in creating space for people to make their own robots to be able to make their own personal projects that they are interested in,” Irie said.

He said the club currently has 10 to 15 members and each individual creates a robot for competitions such as the BattleBots where participants battle each other’s robots.

For more access to resources, the Robotics Club requested Inter-Council-Club for a $8,000 fund last year.

“We spent money on BattleBots, we got a new cabinet for storing a lot of our items,” Irie said.

Since the materials used for robots are sturdy and durable, the club takes apart its creations once they are done and reuses them.

“We encourage them to just take apart their robots because we want to be able to provide as much material as possible for our students,” Irie said.

For the club’s activity next spring semester, Irie has high hopes for the club for this upcoming spring semester,

“We want to get new people into the cabinet and kind of get them experience with running the Robotics Club,” Irie said. “So our hope is to get all of our new members incorporated into our calendar.”