Game Romer

Star Wars fans take note: just about every piece of The Force Awakens merchandise goodness will go on sale September 4 at midnight! The event has been dubbed Force Friday and will celebrate the debut of toys, books, comics, collectibles, and e-books both in retail stores and on DisneyStore.com. The House of Mouse encourages people to celebrate on social media with #ForceFriday and #MidnightMadness hashtags if they feel so inclined.

In addition to announcing the big day, Lucasfilm and Disney also unveiled the package design for some of the products. As you can see, the box features Kylo Ren, the mysterious villain with the triple-threat red lightsaber.

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May the fourth be with us and all that jazz. In celebration of Star Wars Day, Vanity Fair has unleashed the first look at its upcoming Annie Leibovitz photo spread and story about JJ Abrams’ Star Wars: The Force Awakens.

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There’s a new beloved Star Wars droid on the street and its name is BB-8. The spherical rolling robot rocked fans when it made its debut in the first Star Wars: The Force Awakens teaser. Word got out out that it was actually a practical design instead of a computer-generated creation, but that was all confirmed over the weekend during Star Wars Celebration when BB-8 rolled out on stage in front of the assembled crowd both in house and watching online.

The idea for BB-8 came after Bob Iger saw a phone-controlled toy called Sphero and thought it could be integrated into the world of Star Wars. With the addition of a magnetically attached head piece, you’ve got yourself a pretty adorable robot. Industrial designer and Make: contributor Chris Poulsen was intrigued by the design and decided to create his own using a Sphero, magnets and his 3D design skills.

The process, which Poulsen tackled in a single day, involved slicing open a Sphero 1.0, inserting a magnet, designing and fabricating the head piece out of foam, painting the pieces and adding felt and a magnet to the head. Here’s how the finished product looks.

Though Poulsen said that the main Sphero piece is controlled by a Bluetooth, the added top piece makes it a bit less predictable than usual. “Because it’s now more top-heavy and tends to lean,” he wrote, “the gyroscope will try to correct the lean, and it will keep on rolling in whatever direction it’s pushed.”

Disney applied for a patent for what’s officially called the Magnetic spherical balancing robot drive back on March 17, 2010 and officially received it on Sept. 18, 2012. Star Wars: The Force Awakens opens on Dec. 18. Don’t be surprised if you see official Sphero BB-8’s around that time too.