On the Friday evening immediately before opening day of Maker Faire Bay Area, I had a chance to chat a bit with John Hawley, the creator of this K-9. It is arguable that k-9 is, aside from that blue police box, one of the most enduring an iconic items from the Dr. Who series even though it hasn’t graced the screen as often as the rest. People who don’t even watch Dr. Who were commenting that they knew what it was and where it was from.
Like any good maker should, John took a ton of pictures through the entire build process of his K-9. You can see all 74 photos in this flickr set. He shows how he went from the box of parts above, to the finished k-9 unit below. It is fun to see that this k-9 is mostly cardboard and wood. At some point it even had a fully enclosed shell which was unfortunately left in the booth for most of the faire.
Maker Faire isn’t the only place where K-9 has been allowed to frolic. He was also at the Embedded Linux Conference in Europe in 2013. While there he got to race the Yocto blimp and even somewhat celebrate the 30th anniversary of Dr. Who.
The trip inadvertently caused K-9to be in England for the 50th anniversary of Dr. Who, unfortunately he was boxed up in his shipping crates in a warehouse.
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