I've been very interested in these little Roomba robots. The idea that you can turn them on and they'll sweep and mop your floors while you sleep is awesome. My next door neighbor worked for the Weedeater company when they were testing a prototype of a robotic lawnmower. It looked like a big green turtle, was solar powered and would continually cut the grass by following an algorithm. Definately the coolest thing since sliced cheese. It had one serious drawback that the Roomba robots have as well. It could't get into corners and you still had to trim around trees and bushes. The Roomba's brushes that scrub or pickup are in the middle of the machine and since the machine is round like the grass cutting robot, they can't get into corners either. My idea is to make it square or rectangular and move the brushes to the front so that they extend a bit outside the edge of the robot. Then the scrubbing or sweeping motion will also involve not only rotation of the brushes but a sort of orbital motion like that of a palm sander to get all the dirt. Anyone interested in pursuing this, let me know.
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