Pulito: The LEGO Roomba

When [Dave] installed hardwood flooring in his house, he needed a solution to help automate the monotonous task of routine sweeping. Rather than go out and buy one of the many existing automated sweep robots out there, he decided to use his passion for LEGO Robotics to design and build a NXT based Swifferbot he calls Pulito. His version implements all the important features such as object avoidance using bump sensors, an IR beacon used to automatically return to the charging station, and a photoresistor to monitor the charge of the battery. [Dave] also includes a nifty LEGO sensor multiplexor, allowing him to save on I/O ports, which is almost worth sharing by itself.

Videos after the break.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eO9buKXiQe8&w=470 ]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZZhOGgeuts&w=470 ]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjcm1EzqlNY&w=470]

12 thoughts on “Pulito: The LEGO Roomba

  1. I concur with ~heatgap, the charging bumper is a great idea. It could use some kind of cover though so it doesn’t shock anyone or get easily damaged by other stuff bumping into it, like people :P Needs some kind of remote control. Bluetooth anyone?

  2. Neat cleaning path is bad how well does this clean? I see a beagleboard, kinect and an arduino creating the next generation of roombas, imagine it mapping out and determining the best cleaning path while never hitting pets or humans

  3. Interesting idea with the touch sensor multiplexing, but certainly nothing new. I remember building touch sensor multiplexors for the old Mindstorms RCX around 8 years ago – and I certainly wasn’t the first to do it. Mine was only 4 buttons, but there were ones out there that could do 16 or more, and you could detect any possible combination (this setup can’t). Of course, you had to actually build something for those, since the Mindstorms sensors didn’t have resistors already.

  4. @jeremy, if you are getting shocks from 5-12V then you need to see a doctor. He’t not charging it with 240V ac, it’s low voltage.. I’m betting you can lick the charging contacts safely.

  5. Pretty amazing. I wish mindstorm was a bit more accessible to kids though. I got a set for my kids a while back and they failed miserably with them. My kids have found success with the Rokenbok line of toys though. Maybe these can get them to one day be smart enough to play with mindstorm. If you haven’t seen Rokenbok toys you should cause they are awesome. Really well built too. http://www.rokenbok.com

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