ReadyBot Deploys Roombas To Clean Your House
Writing by Evan Ackerman on Thursday, 16 of October , 2008 at 6:57 pm
ReadyBot is a non-commercial group committed to creating a relatively simple robot that’ll clean your entire house. Or, most of your entire house. Okay, some of your entire house. Well, they’re working on it. A hybrid of autonomous and teleoperated control (with complete autonomy a goal), The prototype ReadyBot can currently perform 30-40% of common daily kitchen and general house cleaning tasks. The final product will eventually be able to do up to 80% of your housework, including picking up toys, wiping down counters, and putting dirty dishes into the dish washer. It doesn’t vacuum, but it does deploy a Roomba out of its butt, which is just as good.
ReadyBot is not sure when something like this will be available, but they estimate that if a solid engineering team got on it, a shippable product could be ready in as little as two years, and the price “wouldn’t be extreme.” Overall, how well does it work? ReadyBot’s First Law of Practical Robotics states:
“Consumer robots generally will only do a job 80% as well as a human being, at best. If that isn’t acceptable, don’t use a robot.”
I think generally, that’s true… My Roomba is probably 80% most of the time, and I’m okay with that. That in no way means, though, that I am not optimistic about robots taking over that other 20% sooner rather than later, so I’ll never have to get my ass off the couch.
[ ReadyBot Challenge ] VIA [ Robot Central ]
Category: Consumer
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Comment by tony
Made Thursday, 16 of October , 2008 at 7:37 pm
This story is not new…