This Star Wars BB-8 droid replica said to work by remote control using a smartphone has been designed and built by a student for her engineering degree thesis and she got top marks for the project.
Weronika Muszynska, a 23-year-old student from the AGH University of Science and Technology in Krakow in southern Poland, spent three years designing and creating the small droid.
She told local media: “The title of my thesis is ‘Construction of the BB-8 Mobile Robot and Implementation of the Control Software’.”
She said: “I am a big fan of Star Wars. The idea was born in the cinema when I was watching the movie and I combined business with pleasure. And now I have the highest grade on my diploma!”
The full-scale robot not only looks impressive, but it is also controlled from a smartphone.
Dr Piotr Kustra said that Weronika built the spherical droid herself and designed it to move in a characteristic way.
The construction process of the BB-8 replica took almost 10 months and most of the parts were produced on a 3D printer with over 12 kilogrammes (26 lbs) of material being used.
Muszynska, who is a big Star Wars fan, has enjoyed some on-campus success after photos of her BB-8 appeared on social media and received on over 11,000 likes, 700 shares and several hundred comments in just two days.
Neal Scanlan, who served as creature effects supervisor on ‘Star Wars: The Force Awakens’ described BB-8 as “being quite manipulative, I think he knows he’s cute”.
Director J. J. Abrams revealed: “I named him BB-8 because it was almost onomatopoeia. It was sort of how he looked to me, with the 8, obviously, and then the two B’s.”
BB-8 also appeared in the 2017 sequel ‘Star Wars: The Last Jedi’.
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Story By: Bartosz Staszewski, Sub-Editor: Joseph Golder, Agency: Central European News
