Robot Reviews

If you your local NPR radio station does not carry the Bryant Park Project as one of it's shows, you can still listen to two of the myRoomBud founders being interviewed from the link below.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/stor ... d=15721606

How cool is that!

Yes the kids have their new Roomba and are fitting the costumes for 500 series. Of course, all the animal covers look like they have a big 'ole smiley face on.

Just be careful because this costume covers up all the sensors. The myRoomBud kids did quite a bit of testing with the RoomBud covers to make sure that the virtual walls still work, the Roomba still finds the home base, and the wall following sensor still works.

just our $.02

The interactive 3D documentation is very possible. In fact my company writes software to create interactive 3D documentation on the web. I offered iRobot our time to create an interactive 3D Roomba in a web page and/or 3D PDF file for just that purpose ... unfortunately, they said no thank you. If a...

RoombaReview Island in Second Life for live 3D chat and support .. hehe ... we will give out SLoombas to everone from RoombaReview and everyone can chat it up while their SLoombas clean up! Imagine being able to show off you room configuraton and getting expert help on how best place your homebase o...

If you are just trying to figure out how the Roomba works, check out Joe Jones' book "Robot Programming - A practical guide to behavior-based robotics" A good description of the algorithms for the Roomba are in the book and a simulator with code is also provided. Joe is one of the original...

It will vary depending on how what hacks you are going for. Hardware add-ons and using the Roomba as a robotic platform would push you towards the iRobot Create. Fun hacks and mods such as adding LEDs you might want to go with the cheapest used or refurb you can pick up on eBay. For programming, any...

Thanks Dura for checking it out! You should jump into SL and let me know your avi name so I can drop a SLoomba in your inventory.

The next project will be RoomBud'able SLoombas so you can put different RoomBud costumes on your SLoomba.

I am not sure how low a level of programming you want to get for a simulator, but I created a simulated Roomba in Second Life using the SL scripting language and their physics engine with a small amount of code. The scripting language is state based which worked really well to code the behavior-base...

You will need either a serial cable or blue tooth connection from your PC to the Roomba. I have worked a bit with MSRS using a RooTooth device but not the serial cable connection.

I found the book to be a very good overview of behavior based robotics. It gave me an fairly complete understanding on how and more importantly why the Roomba works the way it does. There is pseudo code throughout the book and full source for a robot simulator, BSim. I should have the SLoomba ready ...

So art imitates (Second) Life Playing around in Second Life for a bit lead me to create a Second Life Roomba. The SLoomba is programmed in the LSL scripting language and uses the algorithms from in Joe Jones, one of the original Roomba developers, book "Robot Programming: A Practical Guide to B...

Check hackingroomba.com for online listings form hacking rooomba by Tod E. Kurt We have been putting up source code for any hacks that we have been writing like the Roomba personalities, roomba scheduling and roomba frogger video game. Written in VB and C# www.myroombud.com/itsalive.html myroombud.c...

I guess I am at the other end of the spectrum. Sort of like the little kid playing footbal with the muddy shirt and pants. While I religiously clean the inside of the Roombas, if they're not dirty on the outside, they're not working hard enough.

While I have not tried it myself, I would not recommend using any type of carpet cleaner powder with the Roomba. The dust would get up inside the Roomba and cover the sensors. Dust inside the Roomba is one of the major causes of Roomba failure.

Sunny the Penguin appeared out of nowhere riding a Roomba just like old St. Nick in his sleigh. http://www.myroombud.com/penguin1.jpg http://www.myroombud.com/penguin2.jpg http://www.myroombud.com/penguin3.jpg It must have been a long trip for Sunny, all the way from the South Pole to myRoomBud head...

Hi Scott,

Thanks for the idea. No, we have never seen Farscape but space robots like that little one Wookie growls at on the Deathstar have always been on our minds. We don't want to get into trouble with the movie or tv or ... people so are a bit hesitant about doing 'character' RoomBuds.

Hi swilson, We have a Scooba and a few Roombas. Our cleaning process is to have the Scooba and Roombas clean over night. To us, that means our personal cleaning time and effort goes down to almost zero! It is very very rare that we ever run either during the day. If we do, it's when we are leaving t...

Cool but I am a bit disappointed that there is no wireless capabilities. For software development purposes, how is this any different than buying a Roomba Red or low end Roomba 401?

I have used both VB and C# for our Roomba projects. You can download free Microsoft visual studio express versions for VB, C#, C++, and J# from http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/express/ Of course all of this is done on the PC and a RooTooth. I have also been working with the Microsoft Robotics Stud...