In addition to the new toy that took last week’s aerial video, we have a plethora of other autonomous and/or robotic devices here at Purgatory.
For example, when we moved here from San Francisco we had a Neato vacuum, but we soon realized one such robot vacuum, no matter how intelligent, was simply not enough to keep the dust and bird fluff at bay, so we purchased a second one (first pic). Each handles one side of the house, but sadly they never get to meet up as a magnetic strip across the doorway into the north wing separates them. The darker unit is named Mo and he handles the north wing. He’s actually Mo IV, as our original unit (named Mo after the character in the movie WALL-E) was retired from service after about 4 years of keeping the SF place tidy. The replacement for the original Mo (Mo II) died suddenly, but was under warranty and his replacement (Mo III) was defective and only lasted 2 weeks–hence Mo IV. The lighter colored unit is NewMo, and he takes care of the master bedroom, guest room, kitchen and great room. He also has a propensity for getting stuck under our bed.
Another cleaner worth mentioning is NeMo–so named because he lives in our pool (second pic). A Polaris Side Pressure Sweep, he actually has no internal brain and is just driven by water pressure, but sometimes he seems to have a mind of his own. He does a great job of sucking up debris from the bottom of the pool, but the bags that are made for such units leave a lot to be desired. They are one of the worst examples of poor sewing design imaginable, with lots of tight spots where stuff gets trapped, making cleanout through the back quite tedious. I bought some nylon mesh and some Velcro a while back, and will attempt to make better bags with that.
In addition to the robot cleaning staff, we also have a few robots that serve to herd Tenar and Thy. Here’s a shot of the three units (third picture). The blue truck is a straightforward RC unit, but that little guy to the left of it with the white wheels has a front axle that flips about and flashing lights and music coming from it. Usually the boys only have to see me pick it up, and if they are misbehaving in anyway (i.e. banging their beaks on the bedroom door thinking Agent Smith is behind it when he’s really off at work), they know it’s time to return to their cages. We actually use the large dinosaur robot to persuade them to get in their cages at night. I hold it under my arm like one would a small dog, and the movement of the head and neck and its funny attempts at roaring are the ultimate signal to the boys that it is time for bed.
Of course we don’t have to break out the dinosaur or the trucks often, as the boys usually are good about getting into their cages when asked. But birds can be belligerent sometimes, so having these extra devices means we don’t have to be the bad guys when getting the boys to behave. The boys have also learned the words “truck” and “dinosaur”–not that they say them as of yet–and recognize them as their final warning before something non-human approaches them.
We have other fun things here as well, but those will be covered in other posts. For now I’ll just leave you with this vid of a little robot love.