Last year, Sphero announced possibly one of the coolest toys of the year, which basically comes in the form of a miniature BB-8 droid from the Star Wars: The Force Awakens movie. The toy can be controlled remotely and moves pretty fast, but the downside is that it is tiny and it is expensive at $150.
However if you’d love to have your own life-sized BB-8 droid for less, you’re in luck thanks to Angelo Casimiro, who has recently throw together a tutorial on how you can make your own BB-8 droid that will cost you less. The end result is about $120 in damages but considering the size of the droid, it might be worth it. Plus you could build a whole army of them too, if you’re so inclined.
So how does one go about building such a droid? We won’t bore you with the details, but basically it involves several household items, like roll-on deodorant balls, a paper mache beach ball, and the use of Arduino Uno, a microcontroller board which will act as the brains of the droid.
While it doesn’t sound like a very neat operation, the result is impressive because Casimiro’s droid’s head can actually remain upright as the droid runs around, exactly like in the movie. In any case if you are interested in building your own droid, watch the tutorial above for the details.