Since its debut in the first trailer for Episode VII, cute little BB-8 - which looks an upturned bowl balancing on a football - has become the unofficial droid mascot of Star Wars: The Force Awakens.
Unlike the much-loved robotic pal from the original trilogy, R2-D2, BB-8 is a droid with intelligence that you can actually buy – albeit in a tennis ball sized-version.
The cute little robot seen in trailers is a rolling ball with a floating head, which played right into the hands of Sphero, who already had a rolling robot in the shape of the eponymous Sphero. All they had to do was figure out how to attach the head.
Standing about 10cm tall with a head stuck on with magnets, BB-8 has everything you would expect from a collectors figure. A detail-rich paint job and enough sounds and quirks are able to convince you, with a touch of the suspension of disbelief, that he is more than just an expensive chunk of plastic.
Just like Sphero, BB-8 charges via induction in a Star Wars-branded cradle, is controlled via Bluetooth from an iPhone or Android smartphone and has a modicum of intelligence to sense its environment through bump mapping, similar to robot vacuums from iRobot and others.
Sphero’s involvement within Star Wars was a happy accident of being part of Disney’s startup accelerator, according to Rob Maigret, chief creative officer of Sphero: “BB-8 came about when Bob Iger, chief executive of Disney and mentor of Sphero, saw Sphero just as the company was gearing up to release Ollie. He showed Sphero’s founders Ian Bernstein and Adam Wilson a still from the movie of BB-8 and said, can you make this real?”
Within a day Bernstein and Wilson had a working prototype, and production went from there. Sphero’s talent then had a hand in making the life-sized BB-8, which took to the stage at 2015’s Star Wars Celebration.
Sadly the full sized BB-8 is beyond reach – “the moulds alone cost $20,000”, according to Maigret, but the pint-sized version at least captures the spirit of the film’s prop.
BB-8 will run for an hour between charges, taking three hours to reach full capacity, and can travel up to 30m from the user at speeds of up to 5mph. His head stares in the direction of travel, moving automatically and pops off when it crashes into a wall – which it will, frequently, even through it’s relatively easy to control using a virtual joystick on the smartphone screen.
The smartphone controller app is filled with Star Wars noises, sights and sounds, and uses augmented reality to show BB-8 projecting holograms onto your floor. You can even record yourself using your smartphone camera and shoehorn your face into the classic “help me Obi Wan, you’re my only hope” – just forget that’s meant to be R2-D2.
BB-8 has a couple of tricks up his sleeve. Shout “it’s a trap” into the phone and the little robot will run for the hills, while he’s able to display emotions using lights within it and a shake or two of the head. Whether you’ll understand what he’s saying without a protocol droid standing by remains to be seen.
Right now BB-8 doesn’t do a lot, at least compared to Sphero or the company’s racing and skating robot Ollie. But it will provide buyers with tidbits from the film ahead of its release in December, and then reveal more features and personality after the film’s release.
Its vignettes, for instance, feature a few classic Star Wars movies and noises, but will expand, while users will also be able to programme their own. BB-8 isn’t, however, including in Sphero’s educational programmes such as Spark, but that may change in the future.
“BB-8 is a little computer in and of himself. Our dream is eventually to do away with the smartphone and allow you to talk to robots directly. For now you can buy your own little bit of Star Wars,” said Maigret.
BB-8 costs £129.99 and will be available direct from Disney and from major UK stores such as Firebox, PC World, Harrods and Amazon.
Comments (…)
Sign in or create your Guardian account to join the discussion