The ‘Loper households are robot friendly. We’ve got Roombas, Scoobas and even Robotic litter boxes for our non-robotic cats. (At least I don’t think that Ryoko and Washu are robots, and why wouldn’t there be Cylon cats?) So when I saw that iRobot has come out with a new programmable robot, I was naturally curious. (And, I’ll admit, slightly giddy as I read more.)
The iRobot Create comes with the basic functionality of the other members of the iRobot family, but with a twist: this one lets you decide what it’s going to do. It’s not just for cleaning floors any more.
Check out their press release:
An affordable, programmable robot designed for aspiring roboticists, advanced high-school and college students, and serious robot developers. Create comes pre-assembled, so developers can design new robots without having to build a mobile robot from scratch.
Hee! “Serious robot developers.” Half of the guys I hung around with in high school (and probably most of the ‘Lopers) would give their right arms to be called a “Serious Robot Developer.” And they could give up those arms, because one of the things that you can do to the Create is add an arm, so it’s a wash! You can also make it into a pet, have it carry your luggage, pretty much anything your imagination comes up with. (Except, ew.)
Of course, you need to know a bit about programming and building robots. There’s always a catch. I can come up with several things I’d like a robot to do. Most of those things involve picking up the random bits of laundry that Jim leaves around the house. It would nearly be a full-time job for a robot just to extricate the socks from the couch. Even better, it can follow him around our place and close all of the drawers and doors and cupboards that he leaves open. Or better yet, tell him that he left something open:
“ATTENTION, JIM, PLEASE GO BACK INTO THE KITCHEN AND SHUT THE SILVERWARE DRAWER!! THIS MESSAGE WILL BE REPEATED AT INCREASING VOLUME UNTIL I SENSE THAT IT IS CLOSED. THANK YOU FOR YOUR CO-OPERATION! AND HAVE A NICE DAY. ATTENTION, JIM –”
That will totally work for the toilet seat.