These robot warriors aim to sweep away the enemy

My teenage son and I tuned into The Daily Show With Jon Stewart last night for our regular fix of political satire, only to find a Future Shock segment called "Roombas of Doom." The piece covered warrior robots made by the same company that makes vacuums. (Watch the segment below.)

I thought the story was a spoof until I saw the CEO of iRobot Corporation being interviewed. I'm familiar with the company because we've reported on its robotic home appliances.

At the next commercial break, we decided to check out the iRobot site. Right there next to a link to Roomba vacuums and Scooba floor cleaners was a link to "Government & Industrial Robots," including the iRobot's Packbot, Warrior, and a squadron of other military-grade robots. (The SUGV model is shown.)

My son asked whether he could buy one. Why? Perhaps he figured the iRobot Negotiator might persuade my husband and me to give him his own credit card or extend his curfew. It was a moot point, since these devices are sold only to governments. You can buy the company's home robots, though based on our past tests of these appliances, you might not want to.

As part of our October 2008 review of vacuums, we found that the Roomba 560, $350, was among the worst performers at cleaning edges and corners and sometimes ventured beyond its electronic borders. And in a May 2006 story, we reported that a mop was faster and more thorough than the Scooba, $399. Both easily wiped up coffee, grape juice, and tea stains, but the mop was better on stubborn stains like crayon and shoe polish.—Celia Kuperszmid Lehrman

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