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Does anyone know what happened to Fairbanks R2D2 ?The first time Neal Brown, former director of the GI’s Poker Flat Research Range, saw the film “Star Wars,” he immediately recognized the sound effect accompanying the movements of Han Solo’s Millennium Falcon spacecraft. “That’s a sounding rocket taking off, a very unique sound.”
In 1978 Brown decided to make an elaborate operating model of R2D2, one of the key characters in the film. He used parts he had lying around at Poker or at home, like a hemispheric dome from a supplier of educational supplies, 3/4” plywood, aluminum sheeting and an old camera lens. The droid’s movements were controlled by a switch box on an umbilical cable coming out of its rear.
The Poker version of R2D2 starred in several scenes over the years, like showing off to visitors at Poker Flat in this photo, events in the Wood Center on the UAF campus, the 1979 Fairbanks Golden Days Parade, and Brown family Christmas cards. “I remember we put it on stage at UAF one year for the first day new students were convened,” Brown wrote in a recollection about building the droid. “Our R2D2 was a little recalcitrant to move properly, but he did his thing and the students loved it. He welcomed them to school.”
He and the old robot parted ways when he cleaned house some time in 1998. Brown couldn’t bring himself to actually dispose of his R2D2, so he instead set it upon the recycling platform at a borough transfer site.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if someone took it home.”
Credits: Excerpted from “Northern Lights and Rocket Flights: My Years at Poker Flat Research Range,” by Neal Brown with Sue Mitchell, a book in publication from Springer Biographies; and Force Fanatics, an article by Brian O’Donoghue in the May 16, 1999 Fairbanks Daily News-Miner.
#uaf #nanooknation #pokerflat #throwbackthursday #starwars
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