It's my life, you're just along for the ride!

Robot and prop-builder extraordinaire James Burton from XRobots.co.uk has just posted the final episode of an exhaustive four-part tutorial series detailing how he designed and built his own remote control self-balancing replica of Star Wars: The Force Awakens’ BB-8 droid.

We’ve already seen home-made versions of BB-8 popping up online, but James is the first to document every step that went into building his. And his creation is all the more impressive given we don’t actually know how the real prop works, and we’ve only seen glimpses of the rolling droid in trailers and at events. So if you’ve got the technical know-how, the manufacturing skills, and a well-stocked workshop, you can actually follow along and build one of your own.

via An Exhaustive Guide To Building Your Own Rolling Star Wars BB-8 Droid.

Not every artistic creation is an instant masterpiece, that’s why there are Moleskine sketchbooks. But where perfection really counts is with tattoos, so a magazine dedicated to the craft created a sketchbook made of artificial skin that lets amateur tattoo artists hone their skills. It’s like an unholy grimoire for artists.

Tattoo Art Magazine commissioned Brazilian ad agency Lew’Lara TBWA to help create a Moleskine-like sketchbook filled with pages made from artificial skin instead of paper. The SkinBook allows artists to sketch out ideas for new tattoos and lets them bring those ideas to life using the exact same tools they’d use on their clients. So not only are they able to improve their skills when it comes to both creation and execution, they can also get a better idea of what translates well to human skin—before they attempt it on a client who’s unable to erase any mistakes. [YouTube via Taxi]

via A Sketchbook Full of Synthetic Skin Lets Tattoo Artists Safely Doodle.

L’amour est mort. Monday morning authorities began clearing Paris’s Pont des Arts bridge of hundreds of thousands of “love-locks” placed there by couples looking to demonstrate their eternal connection in the form of heavy padlocks clinging for dear life to a manmade structure.

In June of last year, the Pont des Arts partially collapsed, causing city officials to start wondering if this love thing was really worth preserving. Time and again, activists demanded that the silly tradition cease, as it made one small part of Paris ugly (which is unacceptable)—but love stops for no one and the locks kept piling on.

Now, the locks are no’mour. “We will remove nearly one million padlocks, or 45 tons,” city official Bruno Julliard told the AFP. Here’s to the breaking of the unbreakable bond of love:

via Love Removed From France as Officials Clear Locks from Paris Bridge.

Movie-and-pizza night usually means having to retreat to the TV in the living room, but not if you live in Hong Kong. Ad firm Ogilvy & Mather HK has built the Pizza Hut Blockbuster Box, a pizza box that turns into a projector at the drop of a hat. All you do is pluck a lens out of the protective stand, mount it in the side of the box and use your smartphone (conveniently perched on the stand) as the video source — any video that plays on your phone suddenly becomes room-sized. There’s no mention of whether or not this cardboard theater will reach other countries, but it’s hard to imagine this concept being limited to one city for very long.

via This pizza box doubles as a movie projector.

If you adore box-like, red houses with an open kitchen and around 1,200 square feet of space, guess what! You’re an average Swede, apparently. Real estate site Hemnet and architects Tham & Videgård came up with the design by crowdsourcing user preferences for size, number of rooms and floors, using 200 million clicks on 86,000 properties. “The result is partly a mathematical translation of the statistical 1.5 floors within a cubic volume,” according to the team. The home makes the open kitchen the focal point of the house, highlighting its social importance to Swedes.

via Sweden’s ‘dream home’ crowdsourced from 200 million web searches.

Remember how cool we all thought the original T-1000 was when it would heal itself after getting shot thanks to its liquid metal alloy? Well, some scientists have created something that’s almost as cool: “Bioconcrete” that can heal itself with the help of some very special bacteria.

via Self-healing concrete: Limestone-producing bacteria used | BGR.

Look, we know this sea turtle’s prosthetic beak has a tragic backstory, but it sure makes the reptile look like it has a future as a badass pizza-loving mutant. According to 3D Printing Industry, Turkish animal rescuers found it almost lifeless at sea, after a boat propeller shaved off a huge part of its snout. It escaped the clutches of death thanks to those kind folks, but a turtle that has to be hand-fed can never survive back in the wild. That’s why the organization contacted 3D printing service provider BTech Innovation, which took the turtle’s CT scans to create a beak that would fit it perfectly.

via Wounded turtle can return to the ocean thanks to a 3D-printed beak.