Update on roomba

[Nikki J]

Some of you will remember last year I got vacuuming and mopping robots. Yes I still love them.

The roomba however appeared to die. I thought it was the battery as it had looked like it was charging until suddenly it was completely unresponsive. It turned out though it was the charger even though the light went on when the roomba docked. Just passing along in case someone experiences the same thing. The charger not only got a lot of use it got moved around a lot so maybe that was why.

 

[Atsugi]

Years ago, when I published a printed magazine for hobby robot builders, I went to Boston and met iRobot's people when they were just thinking about the Roomba. Their chief scientist is probably the world's leading roboticist. The engineer who actually prototypes their stuff--I think he told me he was only high school educated and proud of it.



Several different companies sent me their vacuum cleaner robots to review. Really very sophisticated mathematics involved for the robot to guess the probabilities of where it is in relation to everything else.



OK. Indulge me. Funny story. I was once a working journalist. I wanted to interview the Roomba scientist Rod Brooks at a conference, but he was always surrounded and engaged by many others. So one moment, I saw he was walking down a hotel hallway with a sycophantic talker latching on to him. I also noticed a janitor with a cart of Pepsi and ice. So I grabbed the cart, split the hallway, and grabbed two Pepsi's. The cart blocked out the unwelcome talker and I thrust a Pepsi into Brook's hand. I said, "May I pour that into a cup for you?" So he stopped. I introduced myself and made a relationship so I could interview him several times in the next several months. The other guy was forced by the cart to go down an escalator.



Journalism.

 

[wishmobbing]

Haha, journalism is certainly not bout being shy.