BB-8 Droid Teardown | Hacker News Reader

BB-8 Droid Teardown

fictiv.com

128 pointsfictivmade21 comments

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It's great to see a teardown that also analyses the product engineering going on. Very nicely done.

I was reminded of this blog's analysis of the Apple Watch manufacturing process from its announcement video:

http://atomicdelights.com/blog/a-glimpse-at-how-the-apple-wa...

The site also has a similar analysis of the Mac Pro.

The actual toy moving:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1Y2WfcCb4M

My dog would love it.

Your dog might, but I speak from experience when I say that your cat definitely would not. (assuming it's anything like the original Sphero)

My cats love to hunt the original Sphero, but you need to make it move slow and then fast, play hide and seek, etc.

You could be interested in the "mousr" : https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/525985345/mousr-the-rob...

(I'm not involved with the project, just curious, and a cat person)

I've wanted to get my hands on one of those for my cat!

I have one on order primarily for my kids' benefit, but I didn't think about the pet bewilderment aspect. Man, now I'm really excited to get it!

We have one and I think myself and the kids played with it most of last weekend. I was hoping that the Bluetooth sequences might be able to be decoded so one could emulate commands (or create new ones) from a Bluetooth equipped broadcasting PC. If anyone has any info on anyone attempting this, please post.

Does the sphero SPRK info help? It's the education/dev version.

http://www.sphero.com/sphero-sprk

The original Sphero has an SDK, but BB-8 is build on a newer version of their platform. It uses BLE like Ollie. It should be possible to reverse engineer their BLE service, for example: https://github.com/hybridgroup/cylon-ollie

I'll be looking at this when I get back home to Australia in the coming weeks. With luck my BB8 will be waiting for me.

If you look at my past HN comments there's a trail of unfinished projects.

Contact me, pester me, encourage me. This should be a fun one.

Very interesting to see how it works in there. Though it is sad that it had to be cut apart though, it would be fun to upgrade it.

Nothing a little bit of epoxy won't fix.

I had to saw my Sphero open to replace its batteries (lesson learned - don't leave it charging). Its guts are very similar, and I used some plastic-specific adhesive and then clear repair tape to hold it shut. Ideally the shell would have screwed open and shut, given the wall thickness (I have seen some other repair / upgrades that used clear plastic balls, like xmas ornaments, as the replacement shell). The polycarbonate is very strong, my Sphero once fell ~12 feet onto hardwood, without any damage - physical, mechanical, or electrical.

The nice thing about the way they make it is that it's waterproof!

> Also note the lead weights used here to make the product feel more substantial

Are these weights really made of Lead? Or is "lead weight" just an industry term for anything heavy? If they're actually Lead, how do toys like this conform to RoHS?

I'd be surprised if it was. Children's toys get tested for lead and just breathing it in is dangerous for kids.

Also, lead has a certain look and feel to it. When I open up toys and gadgets, the weight in there doesn't look like lead to me. No idea what it is, but I'd guess a zinc or iron alloy.

what are good resources to learn more about the product/material engineering they discuss in this article?

I'm pretty the site of this article has a bunch engineering resources and articles.

I start scrolling to read the article, and -- okay, what is this dev doing? I'm outta here!

Someone please make someone stop using large fonts on my phone that are hard and slow to read

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