Costumes for your Friends, the Roomba and Scooba
Yesterday we published the article, The Robot Form Factor Debate, which brought up the question of the robot form factor: humanoid or robotic, what do people want? I posted the question on the Yahoo iRobot stock message board and poster thatsmyredbag in the following post reminded me of a company named MyRoomBud, that makes costumes for your irobot Rommba and Scooba; while not exactly making your robot vacuum more more human-like, it’s definitely more “cuddly.” I suspect thatsmyredbag must be an extrovert (read our previous article). 
Here’s his post:
Objects can be lovable without a human form-factor.
I have a favorite Coffee mug, hammer, bowl, radio station, car ... None of these things have a human form factor. And in some cases, they are downright ugly. The trick is to reach that “favorite” status. Take the Palm Pilot or Furby for instance.
One can design an ugly robot that is endearing in its own way… People are wierd.
The Roomba is another example: People are putting cute skins on their Roombas.
After researching the chatter about these Roomba costumes on the web, I suspect that they have sold quite a few of them to the millions of Roomba and Scooba owners. Obviously, there are quite a number of people that, while they love the utility of their robot vacuums, they like dress them up and make them feel more a part of the family. As the folks at MyRoomBud ask on their site, have you ever named your Roomba, talked to your Roomba, spent more time watching your Roomba than it would take to actually vacuum the floor the old fashioned way, or bought a second Roomba so it would not be lonely? Many of you know what I mean. If that’s you, you need to dress up your Roomba too.
By the way, those kids in the accompanying photo: they the founders of MyRoomBud. Isabelle, Griffin, Niles and Tyler. Let’s put some money in those young entrepreneurs’ pockets.
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