The sound of whirring gears around the house

Check this out: Honda’s humanoid robot development (I can’t help but thinking of the Rockettes when I look at that page). Thank God they weren’t commercially successful with the E5. Imagine that beast lurking around you house cleaning up and asking if you want some tea. While I love my Roomba (he does a bang up job) I am waiting for the PaPeRo to finally come out. It would take a cold, cold heart to not want one of those little guys trundling around the house. Most people would trade in their kids for one. I hope someone comes out with a cool household robot soon.

Deep down it doesn’t really matter what it does. Hell, if the Roomba just bounced around the room and returned to his home base for a charge I’d be thrilled. The vacuuming is just a bonus. I wouldn’t expect too much out of this first generation. I’ll settle for: come when I call it, wake me up, take the chicken out of the freezer (something The Cat and I can’t seem to pull off), feed the cats and guinea pig and remind me of things. Maybe make some bacon occasionally (on command of course, not spontaneously).

For now I’ll just build a bot featured in the current issue of Make. Maybe the cats will enjoy it. The last bot I tried to make from Make still is unassembled and a bit of a mess. I remember breadboarding it, but after I just stopped. Ah, but all the things I don’t make out of Make is a topic for another time.