UPDATE: There is a new site – How BB-8 Works – with new insight and links to the patent on BB-8. Disney's patent pre-dates the Lucasfilm purchase, but the mechanics seem to be the same. An internal mast magnetically keeps the head attached, with a control system inside the mask ensuring that it's always vertical. Rollers on the head of the droid give it seamless movement across the surface. This is pretty close to what we theorized.

Fans fell in love with BB-8 when the first Star Wars: The Force Awakens trailer debuted in November. How could you not? The little soccer ball droid moves by rolling, not via wheels or legs. The icing on the cake was director J.J. Abrams' promise that this isn't CGI magic but a real practical effect.

The droid briefly reappears in yesterday's new teaser trailer. And BB-8 was all the rage at the Star Wars Celebration panel, where it rolled on stage in a turf war with R2-D2, offering more proof that the bot is real and not a bit of computer graphics wizardry. But it leaves the world with so many questions. How does it work? And how does his head stay up there?

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Abrams is keeping the details quiet for now. It could be something Disney holds onto until the movie drops during the Christmas season, when BB-8 is sure to be the hottest toy. But a few key pieces of information are leaking out.

As Fortune reported, Disney's Bob Iger specifically made mention of the company Sphero being connected to our new soccer ball-shaped mechanical hero. Sphero is a small (very small) robotics company who market two roving toys. One is a dumbbell shaped roving, Bluetooth controlled bot. It's the other robot, though, that's of interest. That would be their eponymous bot, Sphero. Take a look inside, and you see a little bit of what's under the hood:

Sphero

How Stuff Works has some details on what's going on in there. There's a gyroscope inside Sphero that helps it keep its orientation no matter where it rolls, and an accelerometer for measuring speed. The sensors inside relay information back to a tablet or phone to control the bot. A counterweight ensures that, as the bot pivots and moves inside, the motorized parts stay to the ground. There are wheels inside moving like a mini RC car's, tightly pressed against the walls to keep Sphero moving. The upshot: Everything that keeps BB-8 moving is under the hood.

This model would refute one other plausible explanation of the droid's mechanics, courtesy of Making Star Wars, which showed a stick inside the head, connected to the interior of the sphere. That's just not possible, as you can see from our little buddy's movements.

Of course, xkcd, as always, had this figured out years ago:

Randall Munroe

That's right: magnets, the enemy of Wolverine, old floppy disks, and the Insane Clown Posse. Just take the Sphero, put some powerful magnets in there, build a nice head, and you have one of the cutest and most impressive practical effects in years.

There's a still a ways to go on explaining everything about how BB-8 works, including the motion of the head (probably more RC stuff, maybe the magnets inside can pivot around a little). But it puts us a little closer to understanding what's inside the amazing new droid. Or maybe we're wrong and the real answer is "underfed guinea pigs in Jawa costumes":

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