Playing Frogger With a Roomba
So what happens when you get geeky people that want to hack everything? You get a Roomba, that round automatic vaccuum cleaner, controlled remotely by a bluetooth connection, and dressed in a frog costume, hopping across several lanes of traffic!
Sounds hilarious, and here are the details at CNET:
It’s almost two in the morning and I’m standing in the middle of Austin’s Sixth Street, hoping that I’m not going to get hit by a car.
On the other hand, I am hoping–as are 15 or so other people standing nearby–that one of the cars that keep rushing by will crush the tricked-out Roomba robot vacuum cleaner that Make Magazine associate editor Phillip Torrone and Eyebeam R&D fellow Limor Fried are sending back and forth across the street and through traffic.
This is Roomba Frogger, a modern, geek version of the famous 1981 video game “Frogger,” in which players had to get a frog across a street without it getting crushed by a car or truck.
Torrone and Fried have taken a production Roomba, an autonomous robot vacuum cleaner from iRobot, and modded it so that it is Bluetooth-enabled and controllable from a laptop computer.
Quickly, several in the group begin a betting pool pegged to the big questions of the moment. How many lanes will the Roomba make it across before it’s crushed? What kind of car will hit it? The consensus seems to be that it’ll get hit after one journey across the four-lane street.
And suddenly, the Roomba Frogger, which was sitting in the street, just up against the curb, is moving. Slowly, and toward the center of the street. It reaches the middle, spins around, and Torrone calls it back.
Everyone thought the Roomba would suffer a quick death, but it is far more resilient than anyone expected. Car after car zooms by, and many roll directly over the robot, which manages to avoid getting hit by the wheels.
One car does clip it, though, and a loud “Whoa” rings out from the group on the balcony and the growing number of people gathered on both sides of the street.
Gradually, the Roomba makes it back and forth four times, then five, six and seven.
But on about the 10th trip–15 minutes into the game and after crossing a total of 40 lanes of traffic a white Toyota 4Runner approaches and, unable to avoid the robot vacuum cleaner, crushes it.
The timing is probably good, because as Fried and Torrone gather up the nearly dead machine, a local security guard is standing nearby on the phone and calling the cops.
Now that the new updated Roombas are out, this is how all of the older models should retire.
