Waldos & Flight Controllers

Waldos

Here is a drawing I did based on various source materials (shots of the pod set) and other people's efforts to try and derive the correct appearance of the waldos. This is a very interesting contraption. We never really get a good look at it in the film and it's a devise i don't think I've ever seen previously. I suspect that it is a piece of surplus equipment but what equipment would require such a controller? Perhaps a large crane or maybe it is a remote manipulator control of some type used in med sciences or Nuclear power plants?

The shots above show the waldo already rotated.

Firstly I don't think waldos were ever put into the actual pods themselves. The shot below shows no waldo in the actual faux interior. It's shots like these that are interesting in that you will never see the interior of a real pod except for these shots. All the filming of the interior was done on a separate "interior-only" pod set that was much larger than would fit in an actual pod shell.

Anyway, I tried to work out just how something this shape would operate. Doing so would undoubtedly help me with how it looks. I tried to think what would be required to manipulate the pod arms if they were real. Likely it was a combination of console buttons and the waldo that would ultimately control the arms. There are 3 visible parts to the waldo: the polished metallic main body, the black hand grip, and the little box on the top of the main body (I'll call it the housing connector since it looks like it somehow holds the waldo to the console). I figure that the main body's finger slots may contain actuator buttons to open an close the hands (which hand is in use is likely controlled by a button on the console) so it is a safe bet that these slots are hollow nearly to the back of the waldo with any buttons raised somewhere at the back. The hand grip probably helps rotate the shoulder, and maybe pull and push the arm assembly in and out of the pod. The housing connector would then likely contain a small wheel that would read how far the body housing is being rotated. I can think of nothing else this piece does short of acting as a lock perhaps to hold the arms in position.

So now I need to build the thing and I will probably use styrene unless I come across some other object that would look the way I want it to. More later.

 

Flight Controllers

Here is a drawing I did of the flight controllers (better drawing here). While this piece is in better view than the waldos, it is generally seen against the dark of the pod consoles so it's also very hard to get a good look at it. The other place this controller was used was the moon bus cockpit but it is largely covered by a hand in those scenes. Feeling that these were surplus equipment also, I did some surfing and discovered several controllers available for sale that have a similar appearance to the back end of the controllers but not exact in that the front most claw appearance is missing. I'll post some links once I find the sites again.