Maker creates his own life-size BB-8

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17-year-old Angelo Casimiro decided to build a fully-functional, smartphone-controlled BB-8.

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Until Episode VII came out, if you were a true Star Wars fan, building a working R2-D2 replica would seem like the thing to do. With the emergence of BB-8, R2 now has competition for the coolest robot in the galaxy, and for which droid you should recreate.

At first glance the BB-8, with its continuously-rotating body and a head that always stays nearly upright, looks like something that could only be made with computer graphics on a movie set. 17-year-old Maker Angelo Casimiro, however, proves that isn’t the case with his life-size, phone-controlled toy. The best part of it all? According to his exhaustive tutorial, the project should cost only around $120 — a little less than Sphero’s miniature device.

The physics student from De La Salle University in the Philippines was able to purchase most of the items from a hardware store while recycling pretty much everything else, like a Christmas ball for its eye, an old Wi-Fi router antenna, and roll-on deodorant balls for the mechanism of the droid’s head to keep it upright. BB-8’s head is made from styrofoam, and the body is a beach ball reinforced with papier-mâché.

The secret to his BB-8 build is that inside the sphere is a two-wheeled vehicle. When it moves, this vehicle rolls around inside, changing the ball’s center of gravity and causing it to go across the floor. (Think of it like a giant hamster ball.) The head, in turn, is stuck to the top of the spherical body via a structure inside of the ball made out of wood and magnets. Control is accomplished using an Arduino Uno (ATmega328) with a motor shield and a Bluetooth module, which allows it to take signals from a smartphone via the “Arduino Bluetooth RC Car” app. There’s even an MP3 module and speaker that enables it to beep and talk just like in the film.

Though the concept of this bot is likely simpler than what you would have thought it would take to produce one of these, it still took a lot of work from several people to get things perfect! If you’d like to try it yourself, Casimiro has provided a detailed overview video, as well as a 47-step tutorial over on Instructables.

This DIY BB-8 will have you at beep

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Just in time for The Force Awakens, one Maker has built his own 3D-printed, remote-controlled BB-8.

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Although we’re just days away from the release of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, it’s safe to say that BB-8 has already become the breakout star of the film. Since first laying eyes on the soccer ball-sized droid in the trailer, it has seemingly captured the hearts of everyone — whether a fan or not.

Instead of rushing to stores and purchasing a mini BB-8 of their own, several Makers have opted to build their own cute metallic orange ball with a beeping head. Take software engineer Jean-René Bédard, for example. His version is entirely 3D-printed, hand-painted and powered by a simple ATmega328 based, Arduino-compatible robotic platform.

The Maker designed his BB-8 in SketchUp and then spit him out using two Dremel Idea Builder 3D printers — a process that took roughly 50 hours to completed and called for over 650 feet (200 meters) of PLA filament.

Although it may not roll like the one in the Hollywood flick, Bédard’s bot can balance itself on a pair of wheels and be controlled with a basic RF remote. It is equipped with authentic sounds and several Adafruit LEDs to give it the full effect along with its orange and silver nail polish exterior. What’s more, the beeping BB-8’s head moves via a micro servo actuated by the Arduino.

This project will surely awaken your Maker forces. See for yourself below!

 

Creating an elaborate BB-8 replica

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Inspired by BB-8, one Maker is bringing some Star Wars magic of his own to life with a ball-balancing robot. 

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It didn’t take long for everyone (ourselves included) to fall in love with JJ Abrams’s adorable new BB-8 droids, who have stolen much of the Star Wars: The Force Awakens spotlight even before hitting theaters. As you can imagine, countless fans are already counting down the days before the arrival of what will surely be a holiday best-selling robot toy this year. However, instead of waiting, a number of Makers like James Burton have decided to take it into their own hands by devising fully-functioning replicas.

Whereas the actual character is comprised of two separate parts (a remote-controlled body and a separately remote-controlled head), Burton’s latest project consists of a balancing robot that sits atop a 500mm diameter polysyrene ball serving as its body. This lightweight material gives more relative inertia, and therefore, stability for the droid positioned on top.

As seen when the robotic creature made its debut on stage in Anaheim, the “real” BB-8 features a robotic ball for its body with an independently-moving head that doesn’t fall off, which is clearly the work of physics and maybe some magnets?

And this Maker has taken a somewhat similar approach. Gyroscopes and accelerometers from SparkFun are tasked with maintaining the ball-balancing robot’s equilibrium. Meanwhile, the Maker has employed an Arduino Pro Mini 5V (ATmega328), a couple motor drivers, a few DC motors, a level shifter, and of course, a set of omni wheels for multi-directional movement. These components are all mounted to a 3D-printed chassis and housed inside a 300mm acrylic hemisphere.

With that working well, he also tried to make it remote-controlled. This required the addition of an RC receiver along with another Arduino that offsets the gyro value to make it roll in one direction. For a while, BB-8 was only capable of running on carpet; however, as you can imagine when trying to demonstrate the project at shows and other conventions, carrying around a small piece of rug could be quite tedious. So in an effort to solve this problem, Burton improved his design with some trial-and-error by adding ball bearings inside the hollow sphere, thereby emulating the slowness of carpet.

With a little more 3D printing for additional details, such as its eyes, and some airbrushing of its exterior, Burton was just about complete with his impressive project — that is at least, until he begins a second version. For those of you who are familiar with this Maker’s work, it should come as no surprise that he has put together an extremely elaborate playlist of steps, which you can find below. Interested? You can find the project and its entire code on Github.

Maker hacks a Sphero into a mini Star Wars BB-8

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Well, it didn’t take too long before a Star Wars fan created his own working BB-8 droid.

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By now, it’s a safe assumption that many of you have already seen the initial trailer for Star Wars: The Force Awakens. If so, then you, like countless others, have probably fallen in love with BB-8 — a cute robot that was unveiled during both the teaser and an onstage presentation at the Star Wars Celebration. If you haven’t, then what are you waiting for?

When industrial designer Christian Poulsen first laid eyes on the adorable ball rolling around, it didn’t take long before he realized that he ’needed’ to build one of his own. The Maker was able to accomplish this feat by sawing an AVR powered Sphero 1.0 in half with a hacksaw, using polyurethane foam surfaced with spackle for its head, and adding a neodymium magnet disc to connect the two. From there, the only other thing left was to don its exterior with an empire-approved paint job.

Not only did Poulsen complete the project it in a day, he can also drive his BB-8 via Bluetooth using his smartphone’s Sphero app. While the droid may be remote-controlled, the Maker says it does note that it indeed has a mind of its own. Since the newly-attached head will cause an unbalance to the Sphero’s built-in gyroscopes, BB-8 will only be able to travel in one direction unless you give it a helpful push.

“Because it’s now more top-heavy and tends to lean, the gyroscope will try to correct the lean, and it will keep on rolling in whatever direction it’s pushed,” Poulsen notes.

Don’t lie, you know you love this BB-8. If you want one of your own, head over to the Maker’s step-by-step guide on MAKE: Magazine and get making! While not too much has been said around Sphero’s involvement in the actual BB-8’s creation, Lucasfilm’s president Kathleen Kennedy did mention the Boulder, Colorado-based startup in a recent Fortune Magazine interview.