Hasta La Gadget!

This amazing robotic ball is called the Smart Ball. Built into a small plastic sphere, the robot inside is controlled via your Bluetooth cellphone (Android only right now, but any phone could do it) and rolls in the direction you tell it. The control interface is the phone itself: You tilt it and the accelerometers pass on the info to the ball, controlling speed and directions. Imaging playing Super Monkey Ball in real life and you pretty much have it.

The balls are actually prototypes for a real commercial product, and were made by hacker group Gearbox. The Gearbox folks have already opened up the APIs (the parts that let programmers create apps to control the balls) and have been running hack weekends where people can come along and try them out.

Controlling a ball’s roll is pretty cool, but other uses are even cooler. For instance, one commenter suggests having a GPS app control the Smart Ball: input your destination and the ball would roll away, guiding you to your goal like a benign willow-the-wisp.

The Gearbox people are aiming for a price of around $25, and already have games planned or written. Sumo, for instance pits one ball against the other, with two people trying to knock each others’ ball off a table. The phone would keep track of things and offer stats and league tables. Neat.

We’ll be keeping an eye on the Gearbox blog to see when these are available to buy.

Smart Ball [Gearbox via Make]

See Also:

• Video: Pool-Playing Robot Is Unbeatable
• Human Beats 340-Pound Robot in Football Kick-off
• Robot