All terrain Roomba

posted Mar 23rd 2010 10:48am by
filed under: robots hacks

This little rover gets around on rough terrain pretty well. [Dean Segovis] built it using parts from a Roomba. The Roomba uses wheels in conjunction with gearboxes that handle a lot of the dirty work in getting this prototype going. [Dean] grabbed four of them, as well as the motor controller board and batter, and installed them on this Rocker-bogie suspension. In the video after the break he mentions that this would be quite a good climber if the batter were relocated to the center of the body. An ultrasonic sensor adds obstacle avoidance with and Arduino taking care of the processing. We can’t wait to see future versions of the Roomba’s rough-and-tumble outdoor cousin.

Read the rest of this entry »

Google your home with a roomba

posted Mar 5th 2010 8:57am by
filed under: robots hacks

Meet GåågleBot. GåågleBot is a modified roomba that will not only vacuum your home, but collect data while it does it. While it is carrying out its normal duties as a floor cleaner, it will take pictures, collecting and analyzing all the data for later searches.  With built in OCR, you can actually search for things using text strings.

Aside from just carrying out its normal job, you can also remote control it via the web. You can even control theirs!

[via Boing Boing]




Roombas with UAV Brains Play Pac-Man

posted Nov 10th 2009 6:53am by
filed under: robots hacks



[Jack], [Cory], and [Maciej] are playing Pac-Man with Roombas on a lab floor. The Roombas are outfitted with ALIX3d2 single board computers running Gentoo and a software suite developed for UAVs at the University of Colorado at Boulder’s Research and Engineering Center for Unmanned Vehicles. The hardware and software sections are quite in-depth and make for a good read.

Roomba with dustpan style grasper

posted May 9th 2009 9:12am by
filed under: robots hacks

Remember El-E, the service robot that would retrieve things that you spotted with a laser? The creators of El-E are doing research into other methods of making assistance robots. Their latest contraption is an iRobot Create, basically a  Roomba, with a custom grasping hand. Instead of complex multi DOF assemblies, they have made something that works on the same principle as a dustpan. It has a thin wedge and a sweeping arm that loads items onto it. As you can see in the video, it is quite effective.

[thanks Travis]

Roomba baby cradle

posted Mar 22nd 2009 12:40pm by
filed under: home hacks, robots hacks

The creator of the pac man modded roomba is at it again. This time, [Ron Tajima] is going in a completely different direction. He has made a baby cradle attachment for his roomba. We don’t know what safety concerns there might be, but the baby seems OK with, so far. We’ve seen robot baby cribs before, but they cost much much more and don’t clean your house.




Gaming with Roombas

posted Jun 4th 2008 8:00pm by
filed under: robots hacks


Yesterday we looked at the Pac-Man Roomba casemod. In the video, creator [Ron Tajima] expressed interest in seeing Roombas participate in real life games. So we did some digging around and found some used in an interesting augmented reality game. From Brown University, these modified Roomba Create units play various games, like tag, with an underlying goal of developing smarter robots.

The setup consists of a Java powered client/server arrangement. The game server coordinates the Small Universal Robot Vehicles (SmURVs) and builds a database of events for future use. Players can also control the robots through a Java telepresence client.

The units themselves are made up of the iRobot Create with a Mini-ITX computer strapped to the top. They run Linux and communicate over WiFi with the server and players. They also have an IR emitter used in the games to “shoot” other units.

Gameplay has the server acting as the referee and humans only acting as instructors. The humans come into play when the robots are unable to respond based on their existing database of decision making policies. Through the client, players are able to see exactly what the robot sees with the addition of 3D overlays. Future plans for the game include removing the camera view and replacing with nothing but these overlays. One of the final goals of the project was to create a 24/7/365 gaming experience similar to what is found in MMOs and Xbox Live applications today.

Roomba Pac-Man

posted Jun 3rd 2008 11:00pm by
filed under: led hacks, robots hacks


[Ron Tajima] fashioned a Pac-Man casemod for his Roomba using 448 LEDs and a SH2 MPU control unit. It features the correct arcade sounds and even the death animation. The bot has Bluetooth access thanks to his previous Wiimote hack. He hopes to use this platform to create a real world version of the game.

For more Roomba hacking, check out the Hacking Roomba book and our previous Roomba related posts.

[via Geekdad]

li-ion for your roomba

posted Mar 15th 2008 10:52pm by
filed under: misc hacks, robots hacks


[gim] gutted some li-ion laptop batteries to replace his roomba’s battery pack. He had to pick up a li-ion charger and add a protection circuit to deal with the li-ion cells, but ended up with a new lighter pack for his roomba. If you head this way, the protection circuit is a vital component to prevent fires/explisions/etc. Looks like a great resource for robot power or even R/C projects.




Hack a Day serves up fresh hacks each day, every day from around the web as well as hacking related news.

Send us your hacks






     




Hacks

Resources