The temptation to build the next two parts had been great, I’m not going to lie. But as the holidays were over and it was back to work, I found we had a little less time. But I was still eager to complete the next two issues! The first four had been a resounding success, for both me and my daughter Ember. She had loved the physical construction of it, actually using a screwdriver to place the hull plates together. Looking at the contents of issues five and six, I could see there were no plates this time, although there was a circuit board. Well, it’s something they teach at primary school, I thought it would be interesting to see what she makes of it.
As always, I scan the issue before I start building with Ember. I always think it’s better to be forewarned with anything where I know it’s best if I do it (namely stickers). As I was flicking to the back of the issue for the assembly instructions, I found myself slowing down. I started to see images of The Outrider from the much-loved Shadows of the Empire event from 1996; I saw the Ebon Hawk from one of my all-time favourite games, Knights of the Old Republic; I even saw a sourcebook from the old West End Games Roleplaying Game! The information I was seeing (and ended up reading) was fascinating. Some of the things I already know as a fan, but I loved to see the old Expanded Universe combined so beautifully into the issues, as well as the referencing of where things, like the dimensions of the Falcon, originated from.
After my slight detour, I started to look at the instructions. I quickly noted that this would be a very quick assembly issue. With not too much worry about this issue, I decided to sit down with Ember and start building. The first thing we had to do was attach the circuit board. It involved a single screw, which kept Ember happy as she got to use the magnetic screwdriver. But what really held her attention was the circuit board for the lights. As a huge fan of Jurassic Park, we of course had to do the whole electric shock thing, which had her in stitches, but she was fascinated to know how this was going to create light. In the magazine, it says that all this will be tested in issue nine (our next delivery) and I could see her eyes light up (no pun intended). This really engaged her, and we sat talking about it for a while until she wanted to continue to the next part. If you are doing this with children, shining a light from your mobile phone works brilliantly to illustrate what’s going to happen when you do fit a power supply. Again, Ember was so transfixed by it all.
The next two parts were the cockpit and the passage tube. I would suggest skipping until you’re ready to glue. Ember and I did the cockpit assembly of fitting two instrument panels, but without glue, these aren’t very secure and one of them kept falling off! The passage tube you can test to see how it fits, but because I was a bit wary of pieces breaking doing this with a seven-year-old, I thought we’d save ourselves the trouble. It was a very short issue in terms of construction, the shortest we’ve encountered so far. Yet with the conversation of the circuit board and how everything was starting to come together, I don’t even think Ember noticed. It was straight onto issue six! I will say these two issues in terms of length and the overlapping of what has been done in terms of pieces, work very well when done together.
Telling Ember to go to the instructions – she doesn’t usually take notice of the content yet – and she couldn’t reach it. In this issue there is an article about hologame tables, namely the Dejarik table from the Millennium Falcon. We spent a good amount of time going through these. Ember loved the different creatures, not being able to decide which was her favourite. It was great to share a moment like this, discussing Star Wars while not actually building. She then mentioned that we might need to start reading these magazines in our downtime between issues; I’ll consider that a huge win! The fact that the writing is easy enough for her to be able to read it out to me and understand it, makes it all the more perfect.
Onto the build itself and first it’s the cockpit shell. This was something that having Ember with me actually helped with lining up the recesses on the different pieces. My only complaint is that the front window isn’t secure (it’ll need glue) and kept dropping off as we were lining other pieces up. However, this just added to Ember’s enjoyment, watching me flummox around with this piece and trying to make it stay on (I think she might argue that this was her favourite part of this issue!). Then it was the instrument panels: stickers. Simple enough to do and Ember actually enjoyed making sure I had the correct stickers in the correct place before I started the task of applying the stickers. Thankfully this was a lot easier than the last two issues and took no time at all.
The one part we decided to skip this issue were the control levers. These come on a sprue that needs clippers to get them off. Not a problem, as someone who builds and does miniature gaming, clippers are always in the house, and showing Ember how to use them safely and correctly sounds like a great step to take with her. Yet the pieces are very small and, in this issue, you don’t attach them permanently. There is a note to say that this will be done in issue seven (the next issue thankfully!). Looking at the size of them, it would be too easy to lose them, even Ember said that would make sense to do it later.
Which left us with the final part, the cockpit assembly. We didn’t put the tubes completely together, but we were able to fit everything we needed to show Ember how far we had come with this cockpit. The smile that beamed onto her face, the recognition of what it was that we have been working on for four issues, made it completely worthwhile.
I was a bit worried at the speed we did these last two issues, they have by far been the fastest issues so far. A lot of the parts included are for later issues or require either things like glue or a power supply to fully work, so this felt like not really ‘finishing’ anything. Yet when you look at the cockpit, even in an unfinished state, it’s hard not to be impressed. It clearly shows what will be the potential and the scale of the ship. When I asked Ember how she felt about these two issues, she was buzzing. She loved that it was different to what we had done, that there were circuit boards, the shells coming together and information that she poured over in the magazine itself. At the end of the day, is that not what I wanted? Daddy/Daughter time centered around Star Wars? It’s what we had and the more I thought about it the more I realised it might have been shorter in terms of construction, but we’d spent the same amount of time with the parts from the magazine we were looking at. Reading, electronics, construction; something that’s a ‘fun’ activity has a lot of learning for my seven-year-old in. And through her, my inner seven-year-old is enjoying it just as much, I mean, I have the cockpit of the Millennium Falcon next to me… that’s so cool! The one huge problem? Ember and I both want the next issues, we want to start gluing, turning the power on and just getting on with more construction. Say what you will, but I don’t think this project is ever going to get boring for either of us.
