After watching this, I thought, "This would be awesome for a household robot". It's small foot print would allow it to easily navigate around the house, avoiding the problem of other wheeled robots who could catch their wheels on tables or chairs. Of course the Roomba avoids these problems by hiding on top of its wheels but this could limit its mobility to go over obstacles like books or small objects on the floor. The Ball Bot wouldn't have anything sticking out to get caught on and could pretty easily either ride over or bounce off other obstacles that it found in its way.
I was particularly excited about the ability of the robot to follow a human around. Who hasn't dreamed of having an assistant that follows you around to help you with your tasks?! But back in 2011 I thought it would be a log time before we saw these anywhere close to being a reality. Also when the presenter of the TED talk was discussing this robot in terms of "just a research project" it looked like something that no one would be considering seriously for a number of years.
But along comes Star Trek and BB-8! When first shown in the trailer a few months ago, many in the robot community started to think of how this robot, which looked to be a head balancing on top of a ball, would function:
At first many thought it would just be some "movie magic" but others started to consider trying to reproduce it in reality. One particular fan, James Bruton came up with a very novel solution:
And thus my idea for creating my own Ball Bot was born. While the idea for creating my own BB-8 was an interesting idea and it would be fairly simple to follow in the footsteps of a Sphere-O style, I feel we are now at a stage where anyone with a little time, money, and effort can create their own home Ball bot.
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