Last year when Disney announced that they would have park exclusive "Build A Droid" astromechs, including three models not available in any form from Hasbro, people were a bit upset as their exclusivity would make these figures
VERY hard to get for anyone who is not local to the two theme parks. Being available in only two locations, as well as reports of the parks' Tattooine Traders stores often being out of certain parts during visitors' brief visits made even attempting to get these figures a very costly affair. Flash forward one year and the House Of Mouse has made it a bit easier to get these elusive droids with the opening of a "Droid Factory" display at their "Wish Apon A Toy" store in Orlando's "Downtown Disney" mall.
The Droid Factory display consists of a four-sided kiosk, each containing bins holding the various droid parts and an assembly area.
The bins were filled to overflowing and were more or less organized with a few wrong parts in each bin most likely caused by kids taking them out and putting them in whichever bin was closest. On my visit, just about every piece currently released in the line was available in abundance. The only pieces that seemed to be in shorter supply than the others were the clear R3 domes and 2 different torsos (blue panelled R7/8 and the purple paneled R2/3/4/5/6/9), the young woman working the kiosk said there were several more bags of parts in the back that would be used to refill the bins as the day progressed so the parts were most likely in those bags as she got me the two missing torsos from the storeroom.
Each Astromech is composed of five parts (six if you include one of the optional hats)- a head, a torso, a middle foot and a pair of legs. There are currently 25 different head domes offered. These domes come in multiple models covering eight different types of droids and each model is available in a handfull of colors. Two different styled torsos are available since the eight different models of droids only have two differing sets of torso details according to official "Star Wars" lore (R2, R3, R4, R5, R6 and R9 models share the basic "R2-D2" styled torso while R7 and R8 models utilize a torso that is unique to these designs). The two outer legs and middle foot are the same design across all nine droid models and come in multiple colors to fit whichever color deco you intend for your droids. There are also several different designs for the aforementioned hats ranging from traditional "Mickey Ears" beanies like those sold at the Disney parks for years, Yoda-eared ballcaps and genre favorites like "Indiana Jones'" famous fedora and "Pirates Of The Caribbean" legend Captain Jack Sparrow's tricorn.
Complete set of hats:
After building your droids, you encase them in resealable souvenier clamshells that are available for either single droids ($12.95 +tax) or double packs for a pair of droids (19.99 +tax). As you check out, you are given a label sheet with letters, numbers and symbols to put your droids names on the inner portion of the packaging above the bubbles.
Packaging front:
Packaging back:
Label sheet:
Example of a packaged pair of droids:
While there are several colored droids available from Disney that are different than anything released by Hasbro, the main draw for me (and I am sure most collectors) are the three "Expanded Universe" droid models
ONLY available from the Droid Factory: R6, R8, R9. On my visit to Downtown Disney, I purchased
ALL of the various color variants of these three models as well as two R5 and two R7 models with exceptionally striking colorschemes.
R6 Models:
R8 Models:
R9 Models:
R5 Models:
R7 Models:
In closing, the Droid Factory kiosk will make getting these figures into collectors' hands a bit easier as you will no longer have to spend nearly $100.00 for a park ticket just to see if Tattooine Traders has the parts you need in stock, now you can walk into Downtown Disney for free. Hopefully in the future Disney will make it even easier and put Droid Factory kiosks into their range of Disney Stores found in malls across the country so that everyone that wants these excellent additions to their collections can get them without travelling a thousand miles or more
My Haul (including the "Star Tours" 3pk I got the same day):
