BB-8 Droid by Sphero

A NEAT TOY ROBOT WITH REAL BRAINS.

IF YOU’RE ONE of the many Star Wars fans eager to catch the upcoming eighth lm outing ( e Force Awakens), you’ve probably crossed paths with the little rolling droid named BB-8 before. But there’s something that differentiates this gizmo from the slew of other Star Wars paraphernalia out there: it’s been built by the highly successful robotics startup Sphero. is company’s speciality is app-controlled robotic balls and BB-8 represents an intriguing culmination of cinematic imagination and real world technology — some of which rarely comes to fruition this well.

BB-8’s top-hat head oats on the droid’s spherical body and is attached via magnets, making it completely removable — as you’ll see if you ever drive it o the edge of a step. And though this miniaturized maglev technology is awesome to have in your very own toy, it’s just one of the cool tricks BB-8 o ers.

Like other Sphero robots, BB-8 is controlled via an iOS or Android app, which lets you manually control it using an easy-to-use virtual joystick. But the Jedi companion also has a mind of it’s own and can be le on autopilot to patrol the house by bouncing its way around the uncharted terrain. ough Sphero has other products that allow robotics tinkerers to run their own algorithms through the robots, BB-8 has to run on the company’s autopilot sequence — at least initially. Our favourite bit though: BB-8 draws on your smartphone to record and deliver augmented reality ‘holographic’ video messages using your smartphone’s camera and screen.