Talk:BB-8

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"Swipe: Star Wars Droid Controlled By The Mind". Sky News. August 12, 2016. Retrieved August 14, 2016.

moo

Function of physical prop

How does the physical prop functions? The movement of the ball works through a free-floating inside element with wheels in two directions? Or are wheights attached on fixed rails? How are the ball and the dome connected? Magnets? --Vigilius (talk) 21:25, 17 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Vigilius, I was wondering the same thing. I believe it's as you speculated. Look up the toy versions of BB-8 and how they're manufactured. It appears to me as you described.--Nadirali نادرالی (talk) 23:43, 27 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

History

Randall Munroe described a "New Pet" in 2008 that is very similar to the BB-8. BruceBarnett (talk) 16:49, 29 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

That's isn't "very similar" ... that's prior art. He should take them to the cleaners... although it should mean they can't patent the idea or stop other people making them. Stub Mandrel (talk) 20:49, 11 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Impossible

I removed a link from the External links section. I have several issues with the National Post article. I do not think it fits with WP:EL policy to have a link to an article merely because BB-8 is discussed.

In the video a NASA roboticist discusses the difficulty of moving a small single wheeled (or sphered) robot over non flat surfaces. It might be possible to include the link as a reference in the article to explain the difficulty of the construction, or the reality that BB-8 would be very dependent on flat surfaces (the difficulties of friction on the wheel and height weight ratio for traction were not even mentioned). To make it worse the article title misinterprets the story to claim it would be "impossible to build BB-8" (as opposed to the robot being impractical because it needs relatively flat surfaces which again is what the article actually says). In any case the article was from November 2015, and there are many better more detailed sources of information about BB-8 and I don't see a good reason to keep this even as a source. Without clear context it shouldn't be included, it certainly doesn't belong in the External links section. -- 109.78.252.145 (talk) 15:38, 4 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

If you can find a more suitable article or articles on BB-8, you are welcomed to link them or bring them up for discussions here. You have to remember, we are dealing with a work that is primarily fiction, or science fiction to be exact. If the entire article and it's links are WP:INUNIVERSE context, we've got a problem. Discussing it from a scientific perspective and non-in-universe perspective is encouraged. This is actually good to keep the article balanced between our universe and the Star Wars universe.--Nadirali نادرالی (talk) 21:25, 4 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Third revert, I hope User:Nadirali will and explain clearly before trying to add the link again. As I said above it is difficult to see how it is relevant to any part of the article. The WP:EL guidelines are far longer and more boring than they used to be ... zzz ... the short version is that External links are for official sites etc, an article from the National Post might be suitable as a reference but this article does not seem particularly relevant. I'd help to save the link and include it in the article if I could. -- 109.78.252.145 (talk) 20:54, 4 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

You failed to notice. The article is about BB-8 and not some other random topic. Per WP:EL this gives us more knowledge about the subject's physical dynamics and not just some entire in-universe info on the subject, which is forbidden on Wikipedia.--Nadirali نادرالی (talk) 21:53, 4 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The link does not "gives us more knowledge about the subject's physical dynamics" because BB-8 does not exist, and does not have physical dynamics. The NP article contains theoretical musings on a theoretical robot, it is unacceptable as an EL. I could potentially see it within the article if there were more discussion about real-world ramifications of BB-8, but there currently are not. — TAnthony^Talk 22:09, 4 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Nonsense, BB-8 exists, because they had to make several of them for the movie and there are now innumerable toy ones about. And the real world implication of that is that the damn things work. Stub Mandrel (talk) 20:53, 11 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

And I don't understand the point you're trying to make in this edit summary. The entire article is well-cited from a real-world perspective, I know because I did much of it myself.— TAnthony^Talk 22:12, 4 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

It was inappropriate to add it back after three reverts. You have two different people telling you it isn't an appropriate External link. The section is not an excuse to add a list of any old articles about BB-8, the section is supposed to be much more limited than that.
It is not even a good article, it is a vague article where a NASA roboticist compares the BB-8, R2D2 and C3PO to the robots of NASA. Very little of it is about BB-8. The headline is terrible, claiming BB-8 is "impossible to build" which is not even what he said. It was published before the film was released too, so it was speculative, based only on what was seen in the trailer and advance publicity material.
You should not add the link back again, but if you still think it is appropriate then get a Wikipedia Administrator to provide a 3RD party opinion and get someone to agree with you before you do. -- 109.79.102.243 (talk) 00:40, 6 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

It's perfectly acceptable as the other two links are wp:INUNIVERSE--Nadirali نادرالی (talk) 02:52, 6 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

What are you talking about? I don't think you understand the policies or what we are saying. First of all, you can't justify an EL based on what else is or isn't in the section. We are arguing that this link, on its own merits, is not an appropriate addition to the article, as it is misleading and only mentions BB-8 in a tangential sense that does not add anything valuable to the reader's understanding of the topic. Second, as far as the Star Wars encyclopedia and wiki links go, it's common to link to external sources which have more information on a topic, but the threshold for inclusion is based on reliability (and other factors) rather than whether the format would be considered in-universe by WP standards. Per WP:EL, established wikis can be considered acceptable "with a substantial history of stability and a substantial number of editors" but the policy says nothing about the perspective. The concept of "in-universe" is directed at how articles should (not) be written, it does not preclude or taint external links on its own.— TAnthony^Talk 03:52, 6 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Is the "Analysis" section an extension of this discussion? "Brett Kennedy from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory said that physics would prevent a real-world robot of BB-8's design from maneuvering as well as shown onscreen on surfaces that are not completely flat: "Trying to roll up and over anything is extremely difficult. If you only have one wheel, you're sort of stuck and if you don't have enough height, the physics just doesn't work out."[13]" It sounds like it's the same article that was at issue...and now it has its own section? When did that happen? I agree with the original posters who stated this really isn't relevant...it's a brief brief article based on a video made long before the movie came out...and it's a very brief mention by someone comparing BB-8 to a wheel (?). This is totally irrelevant, and since SW is a fictional story, there could be tons of reasonable explanations as to how "he" works (maybe his sphere provides enough friction to allow him to "oomph" up a hill, or he can regulate it, or he has little servo-anti-gravity-micro-modules that turn on and off)...but since no explanation is provided it shouldn't be the job of Wiki to invent one or to say it's impossible based on an off-the-cuff remark. The point is, well, it's the same point as was made above...it's trivial, totally irrelevant, total speculation, and is trying to explain (or in this case, disprove) something that exists in a fictional universe. What's the point? It's not a factual statement backed up by anything, certainly nothing that adds to the understanding of the character or how he was made for the film. As a point of reference, the R2-D2 and C-3P0 articles don't have similar sections that I could find (e.g, "Analysis: This dude says R2-D2 could totally work in real life!" End of section.) Can we take this out? 70.91.35.27 (talk) 18:44, 17 October 2017 (UTC)Tim[reply]

If no one objects, I'm thinking I'll take this section out per the discussion above, but would rather wait for others to chime in before doing so so that there can be a discussion about it first...any objections?70.91.35.27 (talk) 18:00, 23 October 2017 (UTC)Tim[reply]

Usage

(Transferred from User talk:TAnthony, where initial comment was added here):

Hello,

Dave Chapman & Brian Herring mentioned at the DragonCon Panel that a remote controlled rolling BB8 was built and used in only 2 scenes. The rest were the rod puppet and Trolley. I just thought it was an interesting fact to mention. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.61.219.38 (talk) 05:20, 1 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

It is interesting and probably belongs in the article, but it needs a source. I can look for something that mentions this statement.— TAnthony^Talk 17:04, 2 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Possibly this panel or this interview?— TAnthony^Talk 18:21, 12 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=20O8ek_MUBY — Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.61.219.38 (talk) 10:38, April 13, 2017

I've used the previous panel interview of Josh Lee and Matt Denton to support the statement (repeatedly added by the IP without a source) that there were seven puppets built/used.— TAnthony^Talk 15:11, 13 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

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