This Madman Built a Flying Robot Vacuum Cleaner

Spoilers: It sucks!

Gone Too Far

Finally, the advance in robotics that we've all been waiting for: a robot vacuum that can fly.

The flying Roomba, a creation of engineer and YouTuber Peter Sripol, isn't exactly useful, The Verge reports. But practicality doesn't seem to be the point here. Rather, the experimental robot comes across as an exercise in absurdity and — perhaps — an on-ramp to more helpful tech down the line.

 

Sisyphean Vacuum

The flying robot vacuum — a Roomba with drone propellers tacked on — can't go about cleaning a multiple-story home on its own. While the robot vacuums are famously autonomous, Sripol still needs to manually control it while it flies, according to The Verge, steering it up a flight of stairs like any other consumer drone.

Besides, you probably wouldn't want it to clean your home anyway. As Sripol quickly found out, the propellers kick up more of a mess than the Roomba cleaned in the first place, meaning the airborne vacuum needs to constantly scuttle after its own ever-growing mess.

READ MORE: This flying robot vacuum overcomes the Roomba’s biggest weakness: stairs [The Verge]

More on useless robots: Police Robot Ignores Woman Trying to Call Police