24h Spaceship - Livemodding Project for DCMM 2011

[der_george]

This is a small Diary for our 24 hour Casemod für the DCMM 2011 at the Gamescom in Cologne. This year 4 of last year’s teams decided to build a little surprise for the 24 Hour Livemodding Challenge

Background Info and Perparation:

On last year’s DCMM we decided to build a small present for DCMM’s tenth birthday in 2011. It was Matze’s idea. He saw a casemod in Madrid that was made of different cases and thought it would be a good idea if we made something similar.

At first we wanted to build a Transformer. Every team build a different part like arm, leg, torso and so on. But the problem was that with some parts there would be hardly any potential for doing anything different, whereas others have way more potential.

Later on I had the idea that we could build a giant spaceship made up of smaller spaceship modules.

This was my first Brainstorm:

It went down quite well with the other modders, so we carried on planning in that direction. The secret planning Threads at http://www.we-mod-it.com grew and grew. Loads of great Ideas where being posted and as were more and more Sketchup and 3D-Drawings. We all met up on my Teamspeakserver to discuss all the problems and ideas that we had. The biggest point of discussion was if we should build it in one piece right from the start and thus let the cat out of the bag right from the start, or as first proposed to build it all in separate pieces and put them together at the end.

When we were well into the planning we had the first real setback. One of the Modders who took part in last year’s livemodding didn’t want to build the spaceship. No way did he want to take part in the project. Because it was very close to the registration deadline I didn’t think that we would manage it this year. I didn’t believe that we would pull it through. Some of the guys then decided to save the whole thing and make different teams for this year. Oli and Patrick were now Team 1 and Semme (the new guy) and me Team 5. The rest stayed at it was. Now we were back on track and the planning continued.

The only thing that could mess it up for us now was if not all managed to qualify for the contest. Well it happened. One of our 5 teams didn’t qualify and instead of 5 teams like in the year before now 6 teams were allowed to start. Patrick wrote an email to the organisers asking for the other teams email addresses to supposedly organise going out for a meal or drink in the evening. But he didn’t want to give us their email addresses due to term and conditions that they have. So we searched all the forums and opened topics looking for the two missing livemodding teams. Luckily we found them quickly. One Team was from the “Jugend Ausbildungs Zentrum - JAZ†who help young adults who can’t find a job or apprenticeship - they didn’t have much modding experience. The other team was a more experienced team, who hadn’t taken part in the livemodding before but had visited the DCMM regularly. The JAZ team were persuaded quickly. The only condition was that they didn’t have to change their concept much that they had been practising for months. (A nuclear power plant that would now become the reactor) We placed them in front of the engine section and behind the gravitation ring because it fit in there quite well. The other team didn’t want to take part because of numerous reasons, but we didn’t want to try and force anyone into doing something that they didn’t want to do even though we knew it would look odd having one team doing their thing and 5 building a spaceship at the convention.

Now we just had to wait for the case size and type that we would be getting this year. We presumed that it would end up being the case that they used for the last two years. But this year it took much longer than in the years before, because this year caseking would sponsor the cases for the livemodding. Caseking only told the organisers a few days before we packed and left what case is was. It would be a Xigmatek Asgard 2. At least it was a step up in quality but a lot bigger than what we had planned. Luckily Henning made the framework to carry the spaceship bigger than it needed to be in case something like this happened, we could then adapt it to our needs whatever length it ended up being.

Now that the planning was completed and everything was packed up and ready to go on the long journey to cologne.

Patrick and Oli would build the front which has a design similar to the Star Trek battlestar galactica. The two Blass-brothers (Team BT-Custom PC) are going to build a section that integrates the front into the gravitation ring section and incorporates a wicked reservoir. The Chaosmodders, Matze and Henning would be building the gravitation ring and some weapons und a liveable atmospheric dome. Behind them the JAZ-Crew, Willi and Simon would build the reactor and the last section would be built by Semme and me – Team Aquatuning – a propulsion section with 6 engines and 4 reservoirs as fuel tanks.

Packing and getting there:

Patrick took a nice video of himself packing his car:

I got 50Kg of Stuff just from Aquatuning and some more Coolermaster from that I had to pack. And that stuff was nearly all just for our team. Aquatuning and Coolermaster supported nearly all of our teams. Million thanks to both of you!

This time round everything went well in terms of our stay. The complete opposite to last time – it was really good. Thanks for that as well. :0)

Day One:

First of all unpacking and setting up:

Hennings framework looked really nice. It was led under is working area in individual parts, but the jury didn’t smell it yet. :0) When the clocks started ticking 4 of the teams started to make the body out of MDF. The JAZ-Crew bent its cooling tower. All of these thing took their time to make sure that everything would fit when the whole thing was completed. Jury didn’t notice anything strange. When Patrick had completed his rear part he traced the shape onto another piece of MDF and went over to team BT-Custom PC “Oh, here’s the piece of material you wanted.†Jury didn’t notice a thing. Later that day Matze and Henning had completed their gravitation ring and went over to team BT-Custom PC with another piece where the axle bearing for the shaft had been fitted and fitted it onto their case so that it all worked perfectly. Still we knew that the jury hadn’t worked out what we were doing. We finished day one without blowing our cover.

Here you can see the gattling guns. In the next picture you can see that the front is starting to take shape.

The „cooling tower“ and the first parts oft the „Habitat“ below.

Here is what it all looked like after the first 8 hours had passed.

Day Two:

On the second day we carried on the way the firstday ended. Patrick and Oli milled their front into shape, we carried on with the fins and the engines and chaosmodder with their wiper contact to the gravitation ring.

Our aim was to get so far that we could build everything together after day two. We got all our heads down and focused on our parts. Luckily Henning noticed how the JAZ-Crew wanted to glue a piece of green fabric, like AstroTurf onto the reactor. All of a sudden 6 Modders rushed to the JAZ teams working area to stop them from doing so. An observant member of the jury saw what was happening and came rushing over to find out what was going on. Whilst I persuaded the JAZ-guy not to glue it to the ship the other 5 distracted the member of the jury. It worked. We nearly blew our cover, it was very close. Now we all realised how far behind the JAZ-Crew were. In our short conversation we realised that they desperately needed help. Lots of help. In my lunchbreak I built a cover for their case for them. The second day ended…

Dirt and Dust! Everywhere!

The nearly finished habitat and the gravitation ring with contacts for the LED lighting.

The engine section taking shape..

#

First layer of paint going on the front part. The boys did good work.

Someone’s pleased with the perfect shape on all 5 fins. Schakal is still sceptical. :0)

Yeah, that green thing was going to go onto the case…

Day Three:

After we had nearly killed ourselves because of a serious overfeeding of Brazilian food we decided that we had to help the JAZ urgently.

We arrived at the gamescom first thing in the morning for the opening for the exhibitors to prepare our surprise. Together we cut the framework into shape, doing that we slightly grilled the carpet :0) Sadly one of the organizers case half an hour later when we hadn’t quite completed the framework. A few members of the jury also came one by one in the next couple of minutes. All had confused looks on their faces because we were all at work on the bits of metal but they let us carry on because we said “oh it’s just going to be a shelf for Matzes and Hennings case!â€

When we had finished the framework we put all our parts.

The cat is out oft he bag:

The organizers and jury looked very pleased and seemd to enjoy what we had been building for them. And well that’s how the third and last day of livemodding started.

What we hadn’t calculated was that on this day a lot of camera teams war around and about filming the different teams. So some teams had to start and hat their clocks running whilst others had to do different things for the cameras. It messed up our whole planning and nearly broke our teams neck because we weren’t able to do much without the next part but had our clock running. But an advantage was that whilst Henning was performing some stunts on his bike for the camera crews his team mate Maitai-Matze was able to help the JAZ Guys and built a whole new structure for their case in about one and a half hours. Now the Guys cool install some servos which moved the fans with his help and they were back on track. One by one the other teams clocks all started and soon we we all underway and modding again. So that those who started later could catch up the teams who started first had longer lunchbreaks. Instead of grabbing something to eat we then helped those teams who still had the most to do. All clocks got underway again and our team probably had the most to do. Thanks to Matze who then helped us out with a load of stuff. With only a couple of hours left on the clock we put all the parts together and Stefan and Oli did a brilliant airbrush job on the whole of the case whilst Henning completed his baby “Phallus Minumus†with its hangar, and whilst we filled the watercool loop. Because our clock finished first we then passed on the funnel and the syringe to the next team who then carried on getting the air out of the huge loop(s). Slowly but surely all the clocks expired one by one and the spaceship was completed. It was done! Our long planned project for the tenth anniversary of the DCMM.

The front is completed.

Yeah Semme, it’s looking good. Now it just has to get completed. :0)

BAM,BAM,BAM. Bashing up PCBs. All of a sudden I felt like I was in a zoo with loads of people looking into my pen. :0) They all start to gather around when you start to do stupid stuff like this. :0)

After Maitai-Matzes rescue operation

The painted ring.

Here Matze is adding an electric motor to the hangar so that it opens on the press of a button and „Phallus Minimus“ can dock onto its mothership.

So that all oft he parts are together again, it just hast to be painted and airbrushed completely.

Wrrrrrrrrooooooooooooooooom

Final Pictures:

Finally I would first of all like to say THANK YOU to all the Modders: Matze, Henning, Oli, Stefan, Martin, Patrick, Semme, Willi and Simon – Thanks for the brilliant time together – every year! – you are the best!

Then I also would like to say thank you to the DCMM-organizers, especially Jan and Michael wo bring together us casemodders from all around the world – for the last 10 years! Ant to the members of the jury (Bastian, Florian and Christopher)for the great time and support during the 24h livemodding contest.

A HUGH thank you goes to Aquatuning and Coolermaster who supported our project in an incomparable way!

The spaceship even won 4 prizes, even though it was only intended as a big present to the organizers and a load of fun for us. A first place in the Cases on the Move category. A second and a third place in the livemodding challenge and a third place in the spectators vote.

Thank you for reading if you got this far! Hope you enjoyed it a bit. I did a lot! :0)

There will be at least one more update with pictures and videos.

[der_george]

Here is the first small update:

Semme is doing some work on the rear part

Oli and Patrick making some armour plating for the front

Me hacking up some PCBs

And here are the last few minutes in pictures:

Oli doing the airbrush

Less than a minute left for team Aquatuning

Oli is doing the countdown for us

The time has run out for the first team. The baton is passed on to the next team. Only a few minutes on the clock for the other teams.

In this case the baton was a syringe and a funnel. Still a load of air in the huge loop.

This was the first picture of the completed ship

Ten very happy, exhausted modders on Friday night.

There will be at least one more update with some videos and a few more pictures. If anyone has any more pictures and videos then please post them in this thread.

Thank you for reading. Hope you enjoyed it a little. I did a lot.

:0)

[der_george]

I got the first litte video for you. It’s a time lapse video that Patrick took during the whole build process. The first part of the video shows the front. From the second part onwards you can see the whole ship being assembled:

I also have a few pictures for you. This time round most oft hem are from the other side not facing the visitors:

The frontpiece in all its glory. In the next picture you can see the gattlings but sadly you can’t see them turning. :0) The hole at the top is for the exhaust fan to keep the system installed inside this module cool. :0)

Here’s the habitat again and in the next picture you can see the wacky resevoir the Blass boys made. If you look closely you can see the gravitation-ring spinning.

And last but not least a picture of the back of the ship.

That’s it for now.

So long :0)