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Quickly, several in the group begin a betting pool pegged to the big questions of the moment. How many lanes will the Roomba make it across before it's crushed? What kind of car will hit it? The consensus seems to be that it'll get hit after one journey across the four-lane street.
Soon Torrone and Fried say they're ready. Fried grabs the Roomba and heads for the street below. Nine people go to the edge of the fourth-floor suite's balcony to watch.
But down on Sixth Street, there is no communication between the Roomba and Torrone's laptop four stories up. So Fried grabs her cell phone and convinces him to come down to run things from street level.
Roomba does traffic rumba
A man with a British accent and signs of inebriation wanders over to where Fried is fiddling with the Roomba and asks if the nondescript frog moves around and whether it vacuums while it moves.
He has no idea how spot on he is.
As Torrone arrives, he explains that his Bluetooth transmitter doesn't have the range to reach the balcony, but from the street it should be no problem.
And suddenly, the Roomba Frogger, which was sitting in the street, just up against the curb, is moving. Slowly, and toward the center of the street. It reaches the middle, spins around, and Torrone calls it back.
One of Fried and Torrone's biggest worries was that the police would show up and arrest them. But as the Roomba rolls from lane to lane, two cops ride by on bicycles. They don't stop to bust anyone. Instead, they beep their horns. Everyone laughs.
Everyone thought the Roomba would suffer a quick death, but it is far more resilient than anyone expected. Car after car zooms by, and many roll directly over the robot, which manages to avoid getting hit by the wheels.
One car does clip it, though, and a loud "Whoa" rings out from the group on the balcony and the growing number of people gathered on both sides of the street.
Gradually, the Roomba makes it back and forth four times, then five, six and seven.
But on about the 10th trip--15 minutes into the game and after crossing a total of 40 lanes of traffic?a white Toyota 4Runner approaches and, unable to avoid the robot vacuum cleaner, crushes it.
The timing is probably good, because as Fried and Torrone gather up the nearly dead machine, a local security guard is standing nearby on the phone and calling the cops. And so everyone scatters or heads back into the hotel, walking into the lobby as if nothing had happened.
And as they do, Fried and Torrone are already imagining their next Frogger mission and how they could make it better.
"I did learn something," Torrone said. "If you're really going to do this, you probably need to use (radio frequency)."
Fried agreed.
"I can totally build a 500-feet RF link," she said. "Yeah, I'm on it."
Back in the hotel suite, Ludlow assessed the mood: "Once you get a taste of Roomba Frogger, you can't get enough."
As people in the suite laughed, shouted and talked about what they'd just witnessed, Torrone summed up his evening.
"We had a lot to drink before we got here," he said, "but there's nothing to sober you up like steering a robot through traffic."
See more CNET content tagged:
iRobot Roomba, vacuum cleaner, iRobot Corp., Austin, robot
allow this to be done safely. I know that someone is going to
say, "listen to this dork". But think about this for a minute, I
mean seriously think about this. A mother is driving down the
street, with a kid in the back seat. All of a sudden something
darts out in front of her vehicle. A lot of people's first reaction
would be to either slam on the brakes or swarve to miss it. The
mother than, trying to miss the animal or thing that ran out in
front her swarves and hits a nother car and the mother and child
are seriously injured. SHAME on the cops that saw it and didn't
stop it. Personally, if I were a driver that had damage done
because of this, I would sue the hell out of everyone that was
there, and the town and Police Dept. And, yes such a lawsuit
could and have happened.
The game has potential, but it needs to be safe! Lets see if we
can figure out a way to make it so. What would be fun is doing
it on a NASCAR track. I bet if you were to set this up right, you
could get a big game set up at Disney's race track in Orlando.
Just an idea, KEEP IT SAFE!
They took a vacuum cleaner across the road dressed as a frog. Good job. Idiots.
The article was funny but it did sound a bit dangerous. I would try it in a spot where the speed limit is low so that people could stop without losing control.. but I guess that takes away from the game.
for the damage to the vehicles when they roll over this roomba.
i am thinking from a nice vehicle stand point, having the innards
of this vacuum cleaner throwin under the car and scraching
paint, popping tires, etc. someone can get hurt also if people
start swerving around and hitting things.
funny idea, dangerous consequences. if i ran over this in my
car, someone would be hiding behind a locked door because
they would be about an inch from their life ..:)
stop and beat them with a bat and steal their car.
Thats a real video game.
Roomba novelty and now start to kill
people with it even before it starts to do
it on it's own. Fetish Mongers.
Robots are only good for science, assembly
plants and video games.
Maybe it could be good to have a fullscale robot
walk around with us maybe only for dangerous
settings.
- by inachu1 May 5, 2009 9:52 AM PDT
- I wonder how 2 roomba would clean in the same room.....
- Like this Reply to this comment
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(24 Comments)Better or wrose?