Servicing a robot vacuum cleaner
Back in 2011 I got myself an iRobot Roomba 555 robot vacuum cleaner to automatically clean my apartment. It's a little circle shaped robot that drives around sucking up dust bunnies. Over the years it has bravely fought the dangers of my apartment... shoes, cables, carpet and belts. It survived and it is still working perfectly! This week it was time for some maintenance.
In 2002, iRobot launched the Roomba vacuum cleaner robot. The Roomba is able to change direction when it encounters an obstacle, detect dirty spots on the floor and prevents crashing down from stairs. The iRobot company was founded in 1990 by three roboticists named Colin Angle, Helen Greiner and Rodney Brooks. The company was originally dedicated to making robots for military use.
These days iRobot is fully dedicated to consumer robots. But I still love the idea that there is some military precision and resilience in my vacuum cleaner.
