All of my brilliant roboticist friends are rushing to build functional BB-8 droids. I commend their effort but I wanted something cheap and fun that would work for a costume. To pull this off, I tossed together this fairly simple BB-8 droid puppet.

Extremely strong magnets allow the head to slide along the outside surface of a sphere, controlled by your hand inside. Any size of magnet should work as long as they are strong enough. I used magnets that were rated N52.

You can pull off some very convincing moves and if anyone asks why he doesn’t roll around, just say you couldn’t afford it!