Robotics Blog » Roomba

Roomba’s Playing Pac-Man!

Dan — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 21:28:37 +0000

Roombas and humans play real life Pac-Man! The Pac-Man is controlled remotely while the ghosts are autonomous. Positioning systems tell the robots whether where they are on the map and determine whether they are allowed to turn and where the pills are located.

It would be perfect if they made Pac-Man look more like this Pac-Man with several hundred LEDs, we wrote about earlier!

Check out the creator’s website: http://pacman.elstonj.com/
Found at [Botropolis]

Voice Activated Roomba Listens to You

Dan — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 22:13:57 +0000

A Roomba was made to be voice activated by Verbal Machines Ltd, a company specializing in "Interactive Embedded Speech Products." This Roomba listens to you.

Long Exposure Roomba Photos are Pretty, Insightful.

Dan — Sat, 23 May 2009 01:40:43 +0000

Pac-Man Roomba has 448 LEDs

Dan — Tue, 19 May 2009 23:10:05 +0000

Kudos to the person who made this Pac-Man Roomba. I know from experience that soldering that many LEDs gets old quick!

Robotic Gardening at MIT – New Robots take care of Tomato Plants

Dan — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 07:54:32 +0000

Robots are tending to tomato plants at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab (CSAIL). Nikolaus Correll, an MIT postdoc, has made a robot fitted with a watering pump and programmed to tend to tomato plants grown in the MIT’s CSAIL.

In the video above, the robots appear to be built on a modified Roomba with a long arm and water pump attached to a small water tank. When the plants signal for more water or nutrients, the robot receives their message and rolls over to service them.

Agriculture needs swarm computing. The effectiveness of this type of swarm computing could be staggering. Imagine large orange groves being maintained autonomously by these types of swarm robots. Reduced manpower, accidents, lower cost of production, and higher output would revolutionize agriculture.