Tag Archives: iRobot

Papercraft

Papercraft: iRobot Roomba 400 and Darth Maul Mashup

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iRobot Roomba 400 and Darth Maul Mashup

When I first set out to do these papermodels, I was planning on doing a series. It’s been a few months since our last papercraft, and our Roomba 562 Pet Series and Hal 9000 Mashup proved to be so popular that it was obvious that we should do it again. Our newest diabolical creation is a mashup between Darth Maul and the iRobot Roomba 400 Series, or as I like to call it, the iDarth Roomba 400. Pretty catchy, isn’t it? Click here to download the papercraft (PDF, 1.1 MB).

iRobot Roomba 400 Mashup bottom

I feel compelled to point out that in place of the usual corner brush, the iDarth Roomba 400 has a dual-bladed light saber. There are also important instructions for use on the bottom. To activate the robot, you place it in the middle of your floor and press the “maul” button. What could be more simple?

Have fun printing these out and putting them together!

Robot Features

iRobot Roomba 400 Features

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iRobot’s Roomba 400 Series is the entry-level vacuum cleaning robot. While this unit is their most basic, and lacks some of the more advanced features of the newer robots, the 400 Series is still great at cleaning your floors. Here’s a list of the included features of the Roomba 400 vacuum:

  • Covered by a One Year Warranty
  • Battery Charger
  • Rechargeable Battery
  • Cleaning Tool
  • Vacuuming Debris Bin
  • Owner’s Guide and Documentation

iRobot Roomba 400The Roombas are designed to handle that most boring of household chores, sweeping your floors. All you have to do is carry the robot to the middle of your room and press the “clean” button in the center of the top of the robot. These vacuum cleaners automatically adjust their height to any floor surface, be it rugs, tile, carpeting, linoleum, or wood flooring. This assures that your floors get as clean as possible. Roombas are designed to figure out how large a room is and then adjust their vacuuming time to make sure that it covers the entire floor. Also built into the iRobot vacuums are sensors to keep the robot from falling down stairs and to sense when it bumps into things. This way it can safely navigate around your room and vacuum.

All of the iRobot Roomba vacuums use a three-stage cleaning system. A spinning brush on the left hand side of the vacuum scoops dirt and debris from hard to reach places like overhangs and corners. On the bottom of the vacuum are counter-rotating brushes that grab larger bits of debris, hair, pieces of grass or leaves, and of course dirt. Finally, the robot has a vacuum to suck up smaller pieces of dirt and dust.

Features of the iRobot Roomba 400

(Click here to see a page explaining all the iRobot vacuum cleaner features.)

  • Customer Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
  • Warranty: 1 year
  • Charging Time: 7 Hours
  • Detects Dirt: No
  • Spot Mode: No
  • Max Mode: No
  • Self-Charging Home Base Compatible: Yes
  • On-Board Scheduling: No
  • Voice Demonstration: No
  • Light-Touch Bumpers: No
  • Advanced Anti-Tangle Technology: No
  • Improved Edge and Corner Cleaning: No
  • Room-to-Room Navigation: No
  • High Capacity Bin: No
  • Easier Maintenance: No
  • Wireless Control: No
  • Lighthouse Technology: No
  • Virtual Walls Included: 0
  • Lighthouses Included: 0
  • Wireless Command Center Included: No
  • Extra Brushes: No
  • Carrying Case: No
  • Extra Filters Included: No
  • Bonus Accessory Kit: No

Shop for Roombas on Amazon

News

iRobot Announces Healthcare Unit

Last week at TEDMED, iRobot, makers of of the Roomba robot vacuum cleaner, announced the creation of a healthcare division. iRobot CEO, Colin Angle, presented on the future of robots in healthcare. The new iRobot division will concentrate on developing assistive technology. In particular, they envision helping seniors to be more independent longer by providing robot assistants or nurses.

By doing so, iRobot hopes to “add a million years of independent living” to their customers. They hope to build robots that can help seniors with household chores and even see robots being able to help with administration of medicine. That seems like a pretty huge leap from an iRobot, which is a robot vacuum cleaner, but it sounds like a great idea.

I wonder what scale they will be working on. For example, it isn’t much of a leap to imagine a robot that you can put on a kitchen counter that will sort pills and alert a person that it is time to take their afternoon pills. I could even see hooking it up to a phone line and having it call a relative or social worker if the senior neglects to take their medicine.

I’ve also seen in recent months that robots are being developed to lift disabled patients from wheelchairs to beds. I wonder what other sorts of things a robot could help someone with.

For me, I’ll stick to robot vacuum cleaners for now, thank you.

The iRobot press release may be found here.