Roomba, eat your heart out.
One of the more surprisingly satisfying little things in life is the feeling one gets when sinking a wad of balled-up paper or empty soda can into the wastebasket from across the room. On the other hand, the moment when you invariably miss and need to get up, walk over to the trash and manually put it in yourself, is much less enjoyable. So a Japanese inventor called FRP has taken ordinary garbage bins, and done what Japanese people always do when they see something in need of improvement: He turned it into a robot.
As you can see in the video to the right, a surprising amount of work went into the designing of this three-wheeled “smart” trash can. The operation, however, is deceptively simple: A Kinect-style camera on the wall monitors the room. When it detects movement, it sends a signal to the trash can, which zips over to the projected landing area to intercept the offending garbage before it can hit the floor.
The first 2-and-some-odd minutes of the video are the trash bin’s construction; if you want to see it in action skip to the 2:25 mark.
Obviously, this is not without limitations. It could never work in a carpeted area, for one, and any obstacles on the floor would present, well, an obstacle to get around. But at the same time, this is a neat little invention that would drastically improve the floor situation in bachelors’ pads the world over.
Source: Wired UK
Published: Jul 25, 2012 03:56 pm