Star Wars fans that are in love with the BB-8 droid can now have their very own.
The BB-8, the rolling ball droid that was first seen in the trailer for the much-anticipated Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens, could possibly supplant R2-D2 as the cutest robot in the universe.
Christian Poulsen, an industrial engineering student that is also a diehard fan of the Star Wars franchise, took it upon himself to build his very own miniature BB-8 that is actually capable of rolling to where it needs to go.
Needless to say, Poulsen succeeded, and is gracious enough to share how he did it on do-it-yourself instructions website MakeZine.
To create the miniature BB-8, Poulsen used for the droid's body the Sphero 1.0, which is a remote-controlled robot ball toy that users can control through their smartphones. Poulsen then used polyurethane foam with a wood spackle surface for the BB-8's head and neodymium magnets to connect the body and the head.
First, Poulsen cut open the Sphero using a hack saw while avoiding to damage the internal chassis of the robot ball. He then attached one of the neodymium magnets to a post in the internal chassis of the Sphero, which functions similarly to a shock absorber. The Sphero is then glued back together.
For the head of the BB-8, Poulsen said that he first designed it through the Rhino 3D software, using a screenshot of the droid in the Star Wars CNC Episode VII: The Force Awakens trailer. The design for the head was then milled out using a CNC machine on polyurethane foam. The surface of the head was then finished with wood spackle.
For the exterior of the droid, Poulsen laser cut the robot's designs on tape to serve as masks for painting the robot. Poulsen started with gray plastidip paint as the base coat to block out the flashing LEDs of the Sphero, then layers of paints finished off with a Sharpie marker for details, and finally clear enamel as a top coat.
After the paint was dry, Poulsen embedded the second magnet in the droid's head and an adhesive felt pad to allow the head to easily slide across the body's surface.
The completed miniature BB-8, while still controlled through Bluetooth, has also developed "a mind of its own," according to Poulsen. This is because the head makes the droid heavy at the top, adding the tendency for the ball to lean to a certain direction. The internal gyroscope of the Sphero will continuously attempt to correct the lean, making the BB-8 keep rolling along the direction to where the droid is pushed.
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