Star Wars Madness

My name is Ecaterina Grigore. I am 29 years of age and live in Adelaide, South Australia. I have a 5 year old son and a little daughter on the way. We have been celebrating the fun Halloween tradition since my son was 2 years of age. As my son has gotten older he has formed his own opinions and likings to certain movies and themes.

As most people are aware of Halloween began as the festival of Samhain. It was part of the ancient Celtic religion in Britain and other parts of Europe.

At the end of summer, the Celts thought the barrier between our world and the world of ghosts and spirits got really thin. This meant weird creatures with strange powers could wander about on Earth. The Celts had a big party. It was all about scaring away the ghosts and spirits. Later, with the Christian religion, the day became known as All Hallows' Eve - the day before All Saints' Day on 1 November.

Halloween is now a celebrated tradition world wide allowing children and adults to dress up in their most creative costumes and to trick or treat at people’s houses for candy.

This year my son wanted to be the R2D2 drone from the original Star Wars movies as he is a huge fan. Unfortunately due to overstocked deliveries through our postal services in Australia if I were to order a costume for him it would not have come in time for my son for Halloween, instead I have decided to build him a R2D2 for this years festivities.

I have spent two weeks creating my son’s R2D2 from scratch. I constructed this during the night for my son so I could have full concentration on what I was creating and how I was going to assemble everything. He is currently going through assessments to be diagnosed for Autism and ADHD so I had to ensure the costume was tailored for his sensory needs. The R2D2 costume consisted of thick moving boxes, piping, hosing, security domes, spray paint, cardboard and paper, chains and wheels. I hat to restart his project 3 times from the beginning as I tried creating the costume with other materials and unfortunately I did not get the end result I was looking for. After 90 hours of hard work I completed the costume for my son.

To tailor for my sons special needs I had to ensure the costume is durable and wearable which consists of a body harness inside the R2D2 which is very easy to slip in and out of with comfort. There is also a chain on the front of the R2D2 which allows the costume to be moved along whilst walking with the 8 wheels attached to the bottoms of the costumes feet. Doing this ensured that he had choices to wear his costume for short bursts and if having sensory processing disorder with doing so he was able to take the costume off and just wheel it behind him – this worked brilliantly as he also has full sets of Star Wars clothing to match his outfit.

Halloween is just around the corner and my son is super excited to go trick or treating in his custom made R2D2 costume. He is more excited that he can keep this costume in his room as a collection piece once Halloween is done this year. With a little girl on the way I am thrilled to see what costumes I will be creating for next year’s Halloween. This was the first time I have created a costume and cant wait to make more.