Steel MKIV Iron Man suit.
Many years ago, my son was born nearly three months premature. My wife and I spent a lot of time at the neo-natal intensive care unit, (NICU) at the hospital, and experienced the intense worry of the situation, where the worst could happen and it’s not up to us.
Later, when things had turned out alright, I was in the early stages of discovering cosplay through Pepakura, (Japanese form of paper craft) costume and prop making. It didn’t take me very long to discover what wonderful work some groups of cosplayers were doing, raising money for children’s charities and giving the kids some good clean fun entertainment.
I thought about this and the situation of sick children in hospital and thought, “I would really like to do something to give those kids a break from their unpleasant daily grind.”
Hence, my Iron Man project was born. First paper and fiberglass, unfinished moved to cardboard then ultimately to steel.
The suit is now complete and has been out in public twice to raise money for the Starlight Children’s Foundation. Very soon it will be going to it’s first children’s ward.
The suit has a full electronics suite on board, with motors and relays driving the faceplate, a voice changer, wide-angle camera and video glasses under the faceplate, super bright arc reactor in the chest and repulsors in the hands with light and sound.
Much help was given by too many to mention here, (video with credits coming soon) but special mention goes to James Mouat who pretty much nailed all the electronics for me and the motley crew at the Overclockers Australia forum, (OCAU), who donated cash, tools and consumables in the early days of the build to help me make it a reality.
