If you find the Disney version of the Star Wars BB-8 Robot little small for your liking, makers, developers and of course Star Wars fans that would like to create something a little larger, are sure to be interested in this full-sized open source BB-8 Robot project.
The pictured open-source BB-8 robot was created by Pamela Cortez, Allison Cavis, Casey Kuhns, Maurice Woods, and Felipe at the Loveland CreatorSpace based in Colorado.
With the help of ServoCity, an online distributor of robotics parts, together with the teams CAD skills and a 3D printer, the team were able to create a number of custom internal parts to create an open source version of the mechanics used to propel the new Star Wars BB-8 robot.
For full details on everything that you need to be able to create your very own, jump over to the Make. website where full details have been listed together with all the resources that you will require. Team member Casey Kuhns explains more :
Since there are others trying to crack the BB-8 we wanted to work quickly on our proposed solution. With the help of ServoCity and their online CAD models, we quickly leveraged the Actobotics line to build the inner structure. For some of the detail pieces and internal components, we turned to 3D printing to give us quick results. The Loveland CreatorSpace provided us a base camp and excellent resources to complete this build.
The inspiration for our mechanical build was the Sphero. We had a hunch when the first videos were released that Sphero was involved somehow. We popped one open and began to replicate the mechanism. To add the head and motion we took cues from an older Sphero model. The original Sphero has a singular upper support, whereas Sphero 2.0 has two passive upper wheels to main-tain support. Our design combines aspects of both, using upper wheels for stability and a central support to attach the head via magnets.
The shell is 2 custom-molded ⅜”-thick polycarbonate hemispheres. We decided to go this route to ensure roundness, strength, and enough thickness to mount LEDs in the moving shell.
Source: MAKE
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