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"None of us, no matter what continent or island or ice cap, asked to be born in the first place, and that even somebody as old as I am, which is 80, only just got here."
- Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
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Hired Girl Robot |
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The amazing floor-cleaning robot! |
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What Hired Girl would do (the first model, not the semi-intelligent robot I developed it into) was to clean floors . . . any floor, all day long and without supervision. And there never was a floor that didn't need cleaning. It swept, or mopped, or vacuum-cleaned, or polished, consulting tapes in its idiot memory to decide which. Anything larger than a BB shot it picked up and placed in a tray on its upper surface, for someone brighter to decide whether to keep or throw away. It went quietly looking for dirt all day long, in search curves that could miss nothing, passing over clean floors in its endless search for dirty floors. It would get out of a room with people in it, like a well-trained maid, unless its mistress caught up with it and flipped a switch to tell the poor thing it was welcome. Around dinnertime it would go to its stall and soak up a quick charge-this was before we installed the everlasting power pack. There was not too much difference between Hired Girl, Mark One, and a vacuum cleaner. But the difference-that it would clean without supervision-was enough; it sold." |
From The Door Into Summer,
by Robert Heinlein.
Published by Unknown in 1956
Additional resources -
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This bot has an amazing set of specs:
- Sweeps, mops, vacuums and polishes
- Entirely autonomous operation
- Uses search curves for efficiency
- Returns to base for charging
Heinlein identifies autonomous operation as the most important feature.
(Thanks to an anonymous reader for reminding me about this one.)
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Additional
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More Ideas
and Technology from The Door Into Summer
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