From Open-Source Droids to STEM Smiles: Marc’s Carvera Air Story

For more than a decade, Texas-based maker Marc has been bringing iconic science-fiction machines to life. His projects range from full-size Star Wars R2-D2 droids to Ghostbusters Ghost Trap—but for Marc, building is about much more than recreating characters from the screen.

Through Scavenger Workshop, the open-source maker community he founded, Marc shares his designs so other enthusiasts can build their own droids. He also brings his creations into schools, parades, television programs, and children’s hospitals, using engineering and imagination to create moments of curiosity and joy.

Now, with a Makera Carvera Air in his home workshop, Marc can prototype and machine the custom metal components his projects require—without sending every part to an outside manufacturer.

Marc’s professional life has taken him through two seemingly different fields. Around 25 years ago, he worked as a machinist. Today, he works in IT as a server administrator.

The job may have changed, but his instinct to make, repair, and understand things never disappeared.

When a household item breaks, Marc rarely sees it as something that must immediately be replaced. A broken vacuum handle or damaged mop component becomes another small engineering project—often solved by designing and 3D printing a replacement part.

“I love to build stuff,” Marc says. “I also fix broken things.”

That practical maker mindset eventually grew into something much larger: building complete movie-inspired robots and sharing them with a worldwide community.

Marc began building droids more than ten years ago. What started as a personal hobby eventually became Scavenger Workshop, a community for makers interested in robots, props, and digital fabrication.

Marc remains its main contributor, but the community has grown far beyond one person’s workshop. Its Facebook group now connects more than 3,000 robot enthusiasts, while the Scavenger Workshop website provides design resources that members can download and use in their own projects.

“We share all of our designs open source,” Marc explains. “So many people have built our droid.”

By openly sharing his files and experience, Marc helps reduce one of the biggest barriers facing new builders: figuring out where to begin. Makers can start with an existing design, learn from the community, and then adapt the project to their own tools and ideas.

For Marc, seeing other people turn those files into working machines is part of the reward.

Visit the Scavenger Workshop website to explore the community and its projects.

He also takes his robots to children’s hospitals, where familiar characters can offer a welcome moment of excitement and distraction. His creations have appeared in city parades and television programs as well.

In one project, Marc built a robot to be auctioned and donated the proceeds to the Make-A-Wish Foundation. These experiences have turned his hobby into a way to support his community—one build at a time.

“I like to take the droids to children’s hospitals and spread cheer,” Marc says.

Building a detailed droid requires far more than assembling a body and adding electronics. It involves numerous brackets, covers, connectors, mounts, and decorative components, many of which must fit within tight spaces or match a specific visual design.

Before owning the Carvera Air, Marc had to outsource many of his metal parts. Some components were sent to manufacturers as far away as China. The process worked, but it was slow. Long lead times made iteration difficult, and there was always a risk that a finished component would not fit exactly as expected.

For someone who builds many different robots and props, Marc needed a faster way to test ideas.

“I make many different props, so I needed a way to rapidly prototype parts at home,” he explains. “I wanted a CNC.”

With the Carvera Air, he can now move directly from a design file to a physical prototype in his own workshop. If a part needs adjustment, he can revise the model and machine another version without beginning a new outsourcing cycle.

Marc had previous machining experience, but it had been roughly 25 years since he worked as a machinist. Modern desktop CNC introduced a new digital workflow involving CAD models, toolpaths, work offsets, and machine control software.

Even so, he began producing parts during his first week with the Carvera Air.

“I started making parts in the first week,” Marc says. “The ease of use on this machine is amazing. I was surprised I was making that one week after I received the machine.”

One of those early projects was a complex aluminum component that required three operations. Marc machined the circular feature on the top, performed additional milling, and then completed part of the geometry on a lathe.

The main challenge was learning how CNC work offsets affected the position of each toolpath. Once Marc understood the coordinate system, the results quickly improved.

“Learning the offsets was the most challenging part,” he explains. “Once I figured out that I could run a milling pass on the raw aluminum to take it down to the size I needed, the parts started coming out perfectly.”

The included sample projects helped him understand the overall process, while Makera CAM made it easier to turn his designs into machining operations.

“Learning the Makera CAM software was a breeze. It was very intuitive,” Marc says. “I was able to take my STEP files made in Fusion and create the toolpaths in the CAM software.”

Marc is now working on a miniature R2-D2 that is approximately half the size of one of his previous versions.

The smaller format will make the droid easier to transport to schools, STEM lessons, hospitals, and community events. But reducing its size also makes the manufacturing challenge more demanding. Smaller components leave less room for error, and many parts must be designed specifically for the new frame.

The main body was produced using waterjet cutting, while Marc plans to machine the remaining attached components with the Carvera Air.

“The body is waterjet cut, but all the parts that go on it will be machined on the Carvera Air,” he says.

Once the main frame is complete, Marc will begin producing the many exterior details, mechanical connections, and custom fittings required to give the droid its recognizable appearance.

Having a desktop CNC at home gives him the freedom to test each part against the actual assembly. Instead of hoping an outsourced component will fit, he can machine, inspect, adjust, and remake it as the project develops.

Marc is currently building a larger workshop behind his house. The added space will allow him to take on more ambitious projects and document more of his creative process.

He plans to record videos showing how he uses Makera machines to produce his robot components, giving other builders a clearer look at the journey from digital design to finished part.

“I’m building a workshop in the back of the house where I can go big,” Marc says. “I’m hoping to share all my droid parts with the Makera community.”

That goal reflects the same philosophy that shaped Scavenger Workshop from the beginning: build something exciting, learn through the process, and make the results accessible to others.

For Marc, a CNC machine is not simply another piece of equipment. It is a way to shorten the distance between an idea and a working robot—and to create more designs, lessons, and joyful encounters to share with the people around him.

Sometimes a small machined part becomes part of something much bigger. In Marc’s workshop, it might help bring an iconic droid to life, introduce a student to engineering, or make a child smile.