R2-KT Bunny Ears Patch Supports Easter Seals

My daughter likes to add buttons, charms and patches to her backpack throughout the school year to personalize and make it her own unique thing.  One of the neat things we've discovered to add to it are Star Wars inspired patches of a little pink droid called R2-KT that come out around holidays and special events meant to keep a little girl's memory alive and support various charities.  The most recent patch features artwork by Dave Lieu illustrating R2-KT wearing bunny ears and all proceeds  support Easter Seals.  Each patch is $7.00 and includes free shipping.  You can order patches and pay for them via paypal to r2kt@r2kt.com

There is a special story behind R2-KT.  In 2005 a little girl named Katie was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer. Katie loved Star Wars (like her father Ablin - the founder of the 501st Legion Star Wars fan club) and loved the color pink. When her health declined to the point she couldn't get out of bed, she said she wished she had a droid to watch over her like R2-D2 watched over a sleeping Padme in the Star Wars movie Attack of the Clones.  Word of Katie's illness spread throughout the Star Wars fan community and another club of fans that makes authentic recreations of droids from the Star Wars movies called The R2 Builders knew this was a job for them, and in mere months they constructed a custom R2 unit all painted in pink and dubbed it  R2-KT. It rolled, it blinked, it even talked: Katie had a droid to watch over her! And she kept KT by her bedside through her final days.  Katie passed away peacefully in her sleep on August 9, 2005.

Katie's legacy lives on in her pink companion. R2-KT now tours the world, spreading the joy to Star Wars fans and a message of hope for kids who suffer childhood illnesses. R2-KT attends fan conventions, visits sick children in hospitals, appears in parades, inspires young girls that Star Wars has a place for them, and helps raise funds for a wide range of charities. In 2007 Hasbro produced an R2-KT action figure, which raised $100,000 for the Make-A-Wish Foundation. In 2008 Dave Filoni of Lucasfilm featured the droid in a cameo role in the Clone Wars animated feature film, making her a canon member of the Star Wars universe! In 2013 KT appeared in the Star Wars Weekends parade in Disney World, then traveled to be a guest of honor at Celebration Europe II in Germany. R2-KT has become a symbol of everything Star Wars fandom has come to represent: spreading the magic of hope.

 For more information about R2-KT visit  www.r2kt.com

See the Star Wars Movies LEGOized on Disney XD

Cartoon Network and Disney's cable network equivalent, Disney XD, have featured over the years LEGO themed television specials called the YODA CHRONICLES that are a fun spoof of the Star Wars space opera.  These humorous adventures are a show that my kids and I equally enjoy and it is always nice to be able to watch a show together that everyone in the family likes (yes we even find my wife who claims to not really like Star Wars sitting on the couch with us whenever these shows come on chuckling at the jokes and slapstick humor in them).  So we were all really excited to hear that based upon the popularity of the YODA CHRONICLES and the new animated hit series STAR WARS: REBELS that Disney XD to help promote the upcoming feature film STAR WARS EPISODE VII: THE FORCE AWAKENS will be retelling the original six movies in half hour LEGOized tv specials.

LEGO / STAR WARS: DROID TALES which will air on Disney XD later this year will consist of five 22-minute episodes that will re-tell the Star Wars saga in chronological order from Star Wars: The Phantom Menace through Star Wars: Return of the Jedi.  Taking place in a LEGO universe, Droid Tales will start with R2D2 and C3PO beginning to tell the Star Wars story from their perspective during the victory celebration at the Ewok village on Endor that took place at the conclusion of Return of the Jedi.  An accidental kidnapping occurs while the droids are reminiscing and viewers are taken on a new adventure that leads to encounters with familiar faces and places that prompt the retelling of the entire saga.

Through a press release, Jill Wilfert, vice president of licensing and entertainment for The LEGO Group, provides some insight into this new LEGO/STAR WARS collaboration:

Since we introduced our first LEGO Star Wars set in 1999, we have seen and heard from countless Star Wars fans who have used LEGO bricks to tell their own version of this timeless story, re-enacting favorite scenes and imagining new story lines.  LEGO Star Wars: Droid Tales gives us an opportunity to share highlights of the Star Wars story with a sense of humor and excitement that can only be conveyed through the LEGO brick, and will be a fun resource for families as they gear up for the next movie.

Keep your eyes peeled for more information about when LEGO Star Wars: Droid Tales will be airing on Disney XD as the countdown for The Force Awakens December premiere begins.

Droids Need Hugs Too: R2-KT Valentine's Day Patch Raises Money for Make-A-Wish

When you see stormtroopers and other Star Wars characters at public events they are normally part of an organization of move fans called the 501st Legion whose members focus on creating authentic-looking costumes for cosplay, special appearances, and charitable work.  Since being formed by Albin Johnson in 1997 the group has expanded from a handful of people carefully recreating stormtrooper uniforms to having more than 6,500 active members with "garrisons" located throughout the world portraying Star Wars bad guys ranging from Tusken Raiders to TIE fighter pilots.  Locally, we have a very active group called the Great Lakes Garrison: 501st Legion - Michigan Chapter which is involved in events such as the Detroit Tigers Star Wars Night, Free Comic Book Day, Star Wars Reads Day, and the Great Lakes Comic-Con among numerous other appearances throughout the year.  Across the country you will also occasionally encounter a pink astromech droid named R2-KT making an appearance with members of the 501st Legion to meet with children in a hospital or promote the Make-A-Wish Foundation.

courtesy www.r2kt.com

For a $7 donation with proceeds benefiting Make-A-Wish you can purchase a R2-KT Valentine's Day embroidered patch designed by Juan José Matamoros featuring the little pink droid showing some love to the 501st Legion members who always wear uniforms of the color that symbolizes this special day.  There will be a limited number of these patches made and delivery is scheduled to be by Valentine's Day (Feb 14) so if you are interested get your order in now!  $7 via paypal to r2kt@r2kt.com  I know my daughter likes to have us sew patches like these on her backpack for school so this will be a special treat for her.

There is a special story behind R2-KT.  In 2005 a little girl named Katie was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer. Katie loved Star Wars (like her father Ablin - the founder of the 501st Legion) and loved the color pink. When her health declined to the point she couldn't get out of bed, she said she wished she had a droid to watch over her like R2-D2 watched over a sleeping Padme in the Star Wars movie Attack of the Clones.  Word of Katie's illness spread throughout the Star Wars fan community and another club of fans that makes authentic recreations of droids from the Star Wars movies called The R2 Builders knew this was a job for them, and in mere months they constructed a custom R2 unit all painted in pink and dubbed her R2-KT. It rolled, it blinked, it even talked: Katie had a droid to watch over her! And she kept KT by her bedside through her final days.  Katie passed away peacefully in her sleep on August 9, 2005.

Katie's legacy lives on in her pink companion. R2-KT now tours the world, spreading the joy to Star Wars fans and a message of hope for kids who suffer childhood illnesses. R2-KT attends fan conventions, visits sick children in hospitals, appears in parades, inspires young girls that Star Wars has a place for them, and helps raise funds for a wide range of charities. In 2007 Hasbro produced an R2-KT action figure, which raised $100,000 for the Make-A-Wish Foundation. In 2008 Dave Filoni of Lucasfilm featured the droid in a cameo role in the Clone Wars animated feature film, making her a canon member of the Star Wars universe! In 2013 KT appeared in the Star Wars Weekends parade in Disney World, then traveled to be a guest of honor at Celebration Europe II in Germany. R2-KT has become a symbol of everything Star Wars fandom has come to represent: spreading the magic of hope. 

courtesy www.r2kt.com

For more information about R2-KT visit  www.r2kt.com

courtesy www.r2kt.com

This may be the Droid you are looking for

I'd have to describe our family as walking on the Apple side of life as my wife and I both have iPhones and iPads, most of our songs and movies are downloaded off of iTunes, and my kids' favorite games and educational tools are from the App Store.  That being said, I still like to stay up to date on the functions and features provided by competing brands.  So I appreciated that the folks at Verizon loaned me the new Motorola DROID TURBO smart phone and provided access to their 4G LTE wireless network over the holiday week between Christmas and New Years to see how androids compare.  I have to say we had a pretty positive experience and if you are in shopping mode for a new phone this may be the droid you are looking for.

The Motorola Droid Turbo has a great big screen which is especially great if you enjoy watching video, playing games or just appreciate your type and images being bigger and easier to see; yet the phone really isn't that bulky so it doesn't feel like you are carting around a tablet with you.  For an HD display though I wasn't that impressed by its graphic capabilities when it came to the touch screen applications or surfing the net, but the screen images when you turned on the 21-megapixal camera where very impressive and made me go wow! - especially when I held up my iPhone5S and compared the capabilities next to one another.  Just don't try to take quick shots with the Droid Turbo as it has a second or so lag time for the camera to adjust to give a good crisp HD image.

We used the smart phone to call my brother up who lives on the other side of the country from us in Seattle so my kids could say thank you for their Christmas presents he had mailed to them and I could catch up with what he has been up to lately.  The sound quality using the Motorola DROID TURBO and Verizon's 4G LTE wireless network was exceptional...it sounded as if my brother was sitting right next to us when we were talking to him with no static or lag time although he was more than 2,000 miles away from us during our conversation.  You can tell from seeing the phone in my 6 year old daughter's hand that it has a big frame yet it really isn't bulky or heavy to hold and it is impressive how much of the front of the phone is covered by the screen rather than casing.  If you have kids who are rough with your gadgets or if you  may be clumsy like myself, you may also want to take note of the protective elements they have incorporated into this smart phone.  Motorola has added Metallized Glass Fiber to add strength to the phone's body and also reinforced it with DuPont Kevlar fiber for increased durability.  A water-repellent nanocoating has also been added to protect against spills or getting caught out in the rain although that still won't protect the phone if it were to be say dunked in a toilet or dropped in a lake.  Still a little protection from every day mishaps is better than no protection.  Another nice protective touch added to the Droid Turbo is scratch-resistant Corning Gorilla Glass 3 which guards the 5.2 inch Quad HD display on this smart phone.  With all these features you may be able to avoid having to add a bulky protective case to safeguard this phone and who doesn't hate adding those on to their phones?!

A few other features I appreciated and wanted to point out.  The Droid Turbo has great battery life and I only had to recharge it twice during a week of use.  It has a nifty feature that is really convenient called turbo charging which will give your phone 8 hours of power within 15 minutes of plugging it into an electrical outlet.  It can be torturing when you are in a hurry and need your phone charged and that bar just doesn't move....with this device bing bam boom you are powered up and ready to get back into the world. Another "turbo" feature of this smart  phone is its 2.7 GHz quad core processor which allows for switching between functions with no lag time as I pleasantly was able to quickly flip between my Google calendar, a phone call, my e-mail and the web during a work conversation without any freezes, hitches or hiccups as I multi-tasked through the applications. Awesome! I often find myself having to search my calendar, look for an email, or research something quickly on the web when I'm on the phone so I need a device that has the processing power to let me run multiple features at once and the Droid Turbo absolutely met that criteria for me.

I don't know if it is from familiarity or convenience, but ios still seems a more comfortable fit for me when it comes to an operating system.  There are little nuances with android that just irk me so for the time being I'm sticking with my iPhone; but if Apple keeps issuing ios updates that tend to throw off my enjoyment and the ease of use of their products than I may one day be looking for a droid myself.  If that time comes, I'd have no qualms about picking myself up a Motorola Droid Turbo after my recent test run with the product. 

Disclaimer:  the opinions and views expressed in the post are my own.  A Geek Daddy Blog did not receive any financial compensation from Motorola or Verizon for this post.  I was provided the use of a Motorola Droid Turbo and access to the Verizon wireless network at no charge for three weeks to test and review the phone and Verizon's service.  I am currently a customer for my own personal wireless service with another provider.