'Star Wars' Robots Wouldn't Survive the Real World

The new monthly column by Texas A&M University roboticist Robin Murphy took as its first subject the beloved droids R2-D2 and BB-8, rolling robots that play a major role in "Star Wars." Murphy asked Dan Goldman, a physicist at Georgia Tech, whether a spherical robot like BB-8 would be able to move around over rough terrain like sand -- and "he just started giggling hysterically," Murphy told Space.com. Goldman described buying one of Sphero's remote-control BB-8 toys as soon as the movie came out, to set up in his lab and test robot locomotion over a variety of granular materials. "They run sand[fish] lizards through there, they run snakes, salamanders, the whole thing," Murphy said, referring to types of moving robots. "And they put BB-8 in there, and they gave it a little ramp with plywood, and it rolled in, and then -- thwump! Just buried itself into the sand. And then they tried it again -- it was a repeatable experiment. The only variation would be that occasionally it would stop so suddenly the head would fly off, which is kind of fun." "There's a reason you don't see a lot of animals with wheels," Murphy said.