Kronos

I'm not exactly sure why I decided to make a diorama based on this 1957 science fiction film about an alien space craft that drops off a gigantic energy vacuum cleaner but I thought it would be an interesting project.

     The story is simplicity itself where an alien threat is thwarted by the likes of 50's black and white sci-fi regulars Jeff Morrow and Morris Ankram among others. The film shot in two weeks (and it shows)is pretty cheesy on several levels, the most obvious being the cartoon animations of Kronos traipsing about the Mexican countryside seeking power plants from which to suck up their energy to bring back to the alien planet somehow (one assumes). The aliens are never seen although some of the characters is taken over telepathically to aid Kronos in its quest for power. There is one silly scene where some Mexican peasants are supposedly squished by one of Kronos outer legs which begs the question why they couldn't out run a machine they could clearly see a half a mile away. I imagine this scene was added to satisfy the more bloodthirsty of the viewing audience (like me).

     Anyway, the Kronos robot (if I can call it that) was simplicity itself being composed of basically some boxes, columns and half a sphere and a couple of dodads on the top.  All that I really needed were the readily available on Thingaverse, my go to source for all things 3D. The dodads were from my scrap box. I cast a clear cube with 5 minute epoxy and square stock for one of the dodad ends and the other was made with a 10mm LED mounted on a stack of washers. To hopefully copy the film, I added some fine wires I painted fluorescent blue to simulate the electric bolts emanating from the dodads to extract energy from the power plant.