Ever stumble across one of those vintage electronics shops online, the kind with pages of old parts and mystery boxes full of vacuum tubes, stuff you don’t need but suddenly can’t live without? Yeah, me too.

I ordered a box, and when it showed up I opened it to find vacuum tubes, dozens of them, just sitting there waiting for me to figure out what to do with them.

I stared at them for a while, thinking about what I was going to do with these, and the longer I looked the more they started to remind me of something: R2D2, little robot bodies waiting to be built.

So I fired up SketchUp and designed a cradle with robot feet to hold one of the tubes, then printed it out.

It turned out pretty good. Still needs paint, but I’m happy with it, and the best part is the name is already right there on the tube: 3FH5.

Sometimes you just have to follow that weird impulse.