New rc Star Wars Episode VII droid

Commander Fox

New Member
As all of you have already seen between 0:28 and 0:33 (below), Lucasfilm introduced a new type of rolling droid. Well, first of all I must admit that it has a nice and simple design and, moreover, it looks pretty cute.

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Second point, I've already started collecting material of any type about it and I think I can already start looking for the required stuff (including electronic stuff) in order to build it.
I know that maybe its body could contain arms like R2's ones, but that's not a problem. If there'll be something new, I'll surely add it to the already built droid.

 

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to be honest the first time I saw it I thought it was stupid. I believe my words were something to the effect of 'what idiot chibi'ed the classic R2 head and stuck it on a soccer ball?'

It still bothers me from a design perspective. At standard astromech head measurments of about 16-18 inches in diameter that sphere would have to be collosal. well exceeding the usual dimensions of a standard wheelchair. So it would be severely restricted going through any kind of doorway. and also based on the idea of a remote controlled sphere, anything greater than a quarter the diameter in height is an insurmountable obstacle. Spheres don't roll over things well.

at smaller sizes it then gets to the point where interacting with anything human level or greater is awkward at best.

There was mention that the sphere serves as tool box, which is a neat idea, but based on the design ideas I've seen, poorly executed.

but I did get into some conversations with some people about how one should design something like that is they wanted to achieve something functional. It helped me come up with some great ideas I may have to build. But that being said the best thing to come out of the conversations was the idea of a modular astromech. Being able to take the head of the above BB-8 and put it on an R2 style body and maybe another modular interface... like the fender of my car or something.

The Ball configuration is all but useless on anything other than a flat surface, wheel chair ramp or even and clean roadways. but if the ball is just the shop/garage base and the droid can be moved around...

so maybe I will build a heavily modded version for myself.
 
Info Dump... There are some semi-reliable comments out on the Interwebz that BB is practical and NOT a CGI creation. As much as I'd like that to be true, the shadows in that screen cap are just a bit too crisp to be from natural light, particularly in the highly reflective sandy environs. And from an engineering standpoint, getting a device to perform reliably on a film set is prohibitively expensive. I'm sure there are practical versions of BB performing throughout VII (just as there were plenty of practical R2 shots in the prequels), but I'm equally sure that the trailer shot isn't one of them. Then again, if anyone can build a BB that replicates the trailer shot without CGI tomfoolery I'll gladly bow down and proclaim awesomeness. I'd love to discover I'm wrong.
 
Info Dump... There are some semi-reliable comments out on the Interwebz that BB is practical and NOT a CGI creation. As much as I'd like that to be true, the shadows in that screen cap are just a bit too crisp to be from natural light, particularly in the highly reflective sandy environs. And from an engineering standpoint, getting a device to perform reliably on a film set is prohibitively expensive. I'm sure there are practical versions of BB performing throughout VII (just as there were plenty of practical R2 shots in the prequels), but I'm equally sure that the trailer shot isn't one of them. Then again, if anyone can build a BB that replicates the trailer shot without CGI tomfoolery I'll gladly bow down and proclaim awesomeness. I'd love to discover I'm wrong.

I totally agree and have been having a heated discussion about this fact with my boss. While I can believe the head may be practical in that environment, I don't believe the ball is practical. So either way, realistically there isn't much hope for me on this droid being completely practical. I also think the idea, based on this fact, is a stupid design.
 
from what I've heard they do have some practicles on it, but it has to be on a track to move and even then there were some issues. The cubeli thing is a cute toy, but there are already bots that can balance on top of spheres, which honestly would have been a better design idea than the one above which seems to be based a bit more on something like a segway design with the head affixed to a central shaft.

People try to excuse it by advanced technology, but that just seems poor design. using force feilds to secure the head to the body and tractor beams to allow it to roll over obstacles is an energy hog and sort of like using a granade to kill a spider.

If you must take this design: http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/RIC-920
lop off the upper body at the waist, and replace with a collar much like you would have on the Jedi fliers in the prequels that you can put a modular droid head on. make it bottom heavy so that even at rest it stays upright (weebles wobble but they don't fall down after all) and if you're smart you can figure out how you can use the bulk of the interior of the 'ball' as storage that won't cause all the things inside to roll around like the good china in the laundry on spin cycle. Make it about 2 ft wide and about 3 ft tall... now we are talking much more practical.

Still limited in much the same way as a wheel chair or segway in mobility, but then a regular R unit had it's own mobility flaws.
 
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