iRobot Selects Create Challenge Contest Winner

BURLINGTON, Mass., Oct. 30, 2007 - iRobot Corp. (Nasdaq: IRBT) today announced a winner in the iRobot Create Challenge contest. Built using the iRobot® Create® Programmable Robot, the winning entry, titled "Personal Home Robot," was designed to make life around the house more convenient and entertaining. It can water plants, control lights and appliances, play music and remind owners to take medication. The robot's creator, Danh Trinh, 35, of Towson, Md., won $5,000.

"This is an excellent example of the enthusiasm people bring to the idea of building robots," said Helen Greiner, co-founder and chairman, iRobot Corp. "Contestants put in amazing efforts creating exciting and imaginative robots for the challenge. We saw everything from robots that serve food and drinks to robots that paint pictures and can be remotely controlled from distant locations."

The iRobot Create Challenge was sponsored by Tom's Hardware Guide (www.tomshardware.com) and hosted by Instructables (www.instructables.com). Entries were judged on aesthetics, intelligence, utility, entertainment value, completeness and originality. A photo and description of the winning robot is posted at http://www.instructables.com/id/iRobot-Create-Personal-Home-Robot/. For more information about the contest, or to see the other entries, please visit http://www.tomshardware.com/irobot.

iRobot Create is an affordable, programmable robot designed for aspiring roboticists, advanced high school and college students and serious robot developers. Create comes preassembled, so developers can design new robots without having to build a mobile robot from scratch. With Create, developers can begin designing new robot applications out of the box. The platform provides access to robot sensors and actuators via an open interface. Create also features standard connections for electronics and threaded mounting holes that allow users to secure their inventions to the robot, streamlining the integration of third-party electronics such as sensors, cameras, arms and wireless connections.

We first told you about iRobot's new Create robot yesterday, but now we have more. Basically this is a Roomba, minus all of the vacuuming utensils and adding a bunch of ports that allow the modders to go nuts. There was one functional unit at their booth, and it half-assed worked supposedly because it had been demo'd non-stop for the past couple days. But here is a video I nabbed of the Create doing a variety of tasks. –Travis Hudson

One insane example of what it's capable of involves the unit, four directional sensors, and a hamster inside a ball. When the Hamster tilts the ball in a certain direction the Create moves that direction. Yes, in just a few easy steps you've created a hamster car.

iRobot has said that they really hope that people will even start creating their own accessories and add ons for the Create. This thing could end up being the Lego Mindstorm of the 21st century if they play their cards right.

See a picture of the hamster mobile after the jump.

– Ben Longo

Build your own bot, courtesy of iRobot [News.com]