Star Trek
Star Trek
I don't know of any person who is in the tech industry that doesn't like Star Trek. I am sure some of them are out there though. This franchise gave us a glimpse of the future that in some ways, actually came to reality.
Anyway, you could consider me a Trekkie, but I'm not overly infatuated to the point of going to a convention, or wearing trek uniforms. Though I have considered purchasing a uniform just to say I had one. But I do have a ton of Star Trek merchandise including, but not limited to: action figures, 9" and 12" dolls, quite a few models and other toys like tricorders and phasers. In this article, I'm going to be talking about the models, specifically, ships.
In my collection, I have Voyager, Enterprise NX-01, DS9 Run About (Deep Space 9), and the DS9 Station. I did have the Enterprise D that was lit by LEDs and Fiber Optics, but it got destroyed in the back of a UHaul truck during a move. And of course, over time, I lost all the pics and vids I made of it.
My lit Enterprise D was a blast to build and took quite a bit of time. For instance, the model didn't have openings for the windows and bays, so I had to cut and route out most of the windows (or would you call them portals?). Then I used Fiber Optics to light them. I also had blue LEDs for the necelles, red LED for the bussard collectors, the blinking green and red "running lights", and I even implemented red LEDs for the torpedo launchers. When ou pushed a button on the stand, the red LED would light up but then fade out slowly. I just put a good size cap across the leads of the LED to simulate a torpedo being launched. Then there was the sound. Took audio clips to give it that little extra realism. I had around 10 different audio tracks that actived depending on what button you pushed. Like the opening dialog from Picard, "These are the voyages..", the ambient humm of the warp drive, phaser firing, and a few others. The only thing that I dislike about building models, is the paint stage. I am not a painter and don't have the gift by any means. I did paint the tiles different shades of the light blue and light grey, but I still wasn't content with how it turned out. So, I need to find a local person who likes painting models and knowledgeable of the franchise would be a really big plus. But that is in the future and won't worry about it for now.
