Mac Book Pro as Roomba Remote 44
adelord writes "Alpha Geeks have a new do-it-yourself project to terrorize the cat with: use Perl with a MacBook Pro's Sudden Motion Sensor to control a Roomba. Wired's Cult of Mac cites the original site which has other fun ways to pimp your Roomba . This gets my award for most inefficient use of tech, time, and training for the week. It won't freak out her cat nearly as much as a RoboRaptor on Roam mode. "
It's a Mac article (Score:5, Funny)
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I had to check it out ... (Score:5, Informative)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roomba [wikipedia.org]
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To me, a vacuum is not a cleaning appliance, but the reason people would explode if they were in space without a spacesuit.
You spelled "asplode" wrong.
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There's a reason people like you are _not_ part of the cult
B.
I can see this (Score:4, Funny)
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Palm Pilots are Great Roomba Pilots, too! (Score:5, Informative)
Download codes here: http://www.remotecentral.com/cgi-bin/search/search .cgi?Match=1&Terms=roomba [remotecentral.com]
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Bluetooth Phone Robot Wars (Score:2)
Lego can be controlled by Bluetooth [google.com].
Who's got my swarm app run from the phone in my pocket, for my army of Mindstorm Roombas?
Real robotwars, out in the streets, complete with exploding showers of Lego shrapnel...
Robotic Cat Toy (Score:3, Interesting)
Do any of you know of a robotic toy to amuse the cat ? The Roboraptor Robotic Dinosaur is very nice, but it lacks the ability to going back on its feets on its own. Knowing my cat, I think i'd have to reset it upright every 5/10 seconds.
I'm looking at something that could be "autonomous", can stand upright by itself, and is more or less cat-proof so my cat can have something to play with while I'm at work.
I thought about robotic insects that look for dark places and are shy of movements, but don't really want cockroachs at home, even robotic ones.
So, any Idea ? (except of course a mac controlled Roomba, please...)
D.
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Well the Robosapien v2 can wander autonomously and right itself from a prone position, but you're never going to find something that will a) keep a cat that entertained, b) have battery power to last days. You're better off hooking some laser pointers to something that spins and fires them randomly at the wall.
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All you have to do is tie a piece of string from a ceiling fan and turn the fan on the low setting. The string should be long enough so that it touches the ground when hanging from the fan.
Cat's are notorious for rejecting any "toy" that cost you money unless it is laced with massive amounts of catnip.
you must really have it out for your cat (Score:1)
Another cruel-but-funny-but-unfortunatly-not-on-tape story: some guys had an apartment, a couch, and a cat. Whenever they would turn on the vacuum cleaner, the cat would run into the living room and hide under the couch. Which had low hanging drapes. So one day they lifted the couch up and removed the wheels and set it back down. The couch sat a couple inches lower to the ground, but it was hard to tell because of the drapes. You know what happens next...they turn
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The obligatory comment blues... (Score:1, Flamebait)
Roomba's market is 2M units lifetime compared to industry 10M units per year, and their cost per pound is... yikes!
What a chump.
Give me a Eureka, some coax, a Dell Dimension, and a Wingman 3D.
Just thought we'd get all that out of the way.
Where Oh Where Art Tho Aibo (Score:2)
If you really insisted they could make some kind of cutesy push vacuum cleaner for it and do some light house work as well
I needed that (Score:1)
What about the Wii remote? (Score:2, Funny)
Wiimote + MacBook + Roomba = High King Nerd Status (Score:2)
Since the Wiimote can be used with OSX [slashdot.org] to some extent, perhaps someone could connect the two so that you control the Roomba by waving your hand around.
Re:Wiimote + MacBook + Roomba = High King Nerd Sta (Score:2)
A real geek would build a Bluetooth interface into the Roomba directly.
Who cares about the Roomba anyway? (Score:3, Informative)
what about a Woomba Remote? (Score:1)
LARP Robotwars (Score:2)
Lego can be controlled by Bluetooth [google.com].
Who's got my swarm app run from the phone in my pocket, for my army of Mindstorm Roombas?
Real robotwars, out in the streets, complete with exploding showers of Lego shrapnel...