This is admittedly old news, but it’s definitely cool enough to post here. Among the many products they create, iRobot has a robotics platform for eduction and tinkering that is called the iRobot Create. See here for a thorough review of this item and a page of different projects they have done internally with the iRobot Create. Among these projects is an amazingly amusing hamster-guided Roomba vacuum cleaner.
It’s hard to make out the mechanism they’re using on this robot project, but it looks like the ball is on some rollers. The rollers are probably hooked up to an optical encoding system, a lot like how the old fashioned computer mice with the balls worked. The Roomba is programmed to adjust its speed and direction to match that of the hamster.
Now all they have to do is figure out how to train the hamster to vacuum the most dirty parts of your floor. Maybe there would be some way to train the hamster to follow your shedding pets or messy kid around the house. Either way, I find it fascinating and amusing at the same time.
The iRobot Roomba 610 Professional Series is designed especially for cleaning lots of ground and also for places that get lots of traffic, and thus are especially dirty. Here are some of the features of the Roomba 610 robot vacuum cleaner:
Comes with two virtual wall lighthouses
Rechargeable Battery
Comes with an Accessory Kit and Case
Two Brush Cleaning Tools
Extra Set of Brushes
Vacuuming Debris Bin
Sweeping Bin is High Capacity
Two Extra Filters
Has three Cleaning Modes
Covered by a Two Year Warranty
Weighted Professional Home Base
Professional Series Power Supply
The iRobot Roomba 610 monitors where it is sweeping with dozens of sensors. It uses this information to adjust its sweeping up to 67 times each second. iRobot has rated the 610 with a “Room Coverage” score of 4, which means that it should be able to clean four normal sized rooms before needing to recharge its battery. The Roomba 610 is one of the iRobot robot vacuum cleaners that is able to charge itself in three hours (the charge time for most of the others is seven.)
The Rhoomba robot vacuum cleaner 610 Professional Series is designed to provide excellent room coverage. It works on hard floors as well as carpeting. The robot vacuum cleaner will avoid cliffs and detect dirt. They feature technology which keeps them from getting stuck and from bumping into objects too hard. The robot vacuum cleaner will be able to find its way to its charger and can be kept out of areas with virtual walls and lighthouses.
Here are the Features of the Roomba 610 Professional Series. (See this page for explanation of all the iRobot vacuum cleaner features.)
