Robot vacuum cleaner employed by Brit budget hotel chain Travelodge flees We're sad to report the robot vacuum cleaner that made a brave attempt to flee a Travelodge has been hauled back into service. The BBC reports that the unidentified brand of robovac "failed to stop at the front door of the hotel in Orchard park in Cambridge on Thursday," but our theory is the automaton reached self-awareness, …
I think there was a short story arc about the bots.
For your reading pleasure:
https://www.theregister.com/2010/09/17/bofh_2010_episode_10/
https://www.theregister.com/2010/10/01/bofh_2010_episode_11/
https://www.theregister.com/2010/11/05/bofh_2010_episode_15/
https://www.theregister.com/2010/11/12/bofh_2010_episode_16/
https://www.theregister.com/2011/07/22/bofh_2011_episode_11/
The middle one is the one referenced, I think. Happy Bot Wars!
Lots of research happening in Cambridge. I hope Travelodge did a system integrity check to make sure it hadn't been fiddled with.
Looking at the satellite imagery, if it was found under a hedge, the little critter didn't make it off the premises on its own. If it was missing for so long, it must have been taken away and then returned and hidden there to be "found".
Who would go to such lengths if there isn't some nefarious plan unfolding. If you are staying at the Orchard Park Travelodge, you better sleep with one eye open...
What was Formule 1, now styled HotelF1 as a tentacle of Accor, is probably the closest. They have an unfortunate habit of choosing sites next to sewage works (which tend to make themselves felt more in France, than, say, Germany).
I used to do work for Accor and repaired a printer at a FormuleOne "hotel". They were in no way comparable to a Travelodge. FormuleOne was more like a Youth Hostel, except cleaner. Travelodge is The Ritz by comparison! Unless the name change to HotelF1 also included a major upgrade to the internals. As I remember it, they had tubular steel bunk beds and shared "self cleaning" showers/bathrooms (1 or 2 per floor)
Are you sure of that?
Here's an update of a story I first re in these pages about 5 years ago.
We got four robotic vacuums for Xmas one year (SWMBO's relatives are in cahoots, it would seem). We called them all FRED, short for Fucking Ridiculous Electronic Device, and turned one loose on each floor to see what would happen. The cats ignored them, but the dawgs took an instant dislike to them. They all met their demise in under three days.
The first to go was FRED four (the one supposedly patrolling my attic office space). It was found beeping most piteously in a mud puddle under a rhododendron at the far end of the dawg's run. It never rolled again. FRED three disappeared. We never did find it[0]. FRED two kept mysteriously falling down the uncarpeted back-stairs, until the magic smoke came out. FRED one somehow wound up in the laundry sink while a load of wash was running. None of us actually observed the roboticide as it was occurring, so we don't know who the perp(s) is/are ... but my money is on the very elderly Standard Poodle, who had a rather guilty, yet satisfied look about him for a week or so afterwards.
Needless to say, we didn't repeat the experiment.
[0] Update: FRED three was found in the crawl-space under the feed barn about a year later. I have no idea how it got there, the only entrance large enough for it to physically fit is the locked trap door in the floor, and I have the only key.
"the only entrance large enough for it to physically fit is the locked trap door in the floor, and I have the only key."
Yeah, but what was that standard poodle doing in the machine shop late one night, after rummaging through your pockets white you slept. Are you SURE it's the only key?
OK, jake, you've had a good run over the last couple of years, but I have to call shenanigans on this one.
A standard poodle can easily drag along something the size of a robovac, so one and two are plausible, but three and four would require the pooch physically carrying both of them like sticks - even if your *elderly* poodle has that sort of determination and jaw strength, you could identify him by the bite indentations alone!
Also, cats not being interested at all at a shorter-than-them critter scurrying along in their territory, not even checking if it's edible? Yeah, right.
In conclusion, fun to read, but dial down the tall tale coefficient a little, or at least wait until Friday evening before reposting unmodified older stories such as this one ;).
If it was him, which I only suspect, nobody actually witnessed him doing it, the machines would have been fairly easy for him to move. They weren't the 13ish pound irobot thingies, they were an off-brand that probably weighed in at seven or eight pounds. Remember, they were a semi-joke xmas present from the in-law side, some of whom have issues with our hairy housemates. Definitely not top of the line kit. ANYwho, even at that age, retrieving a 4 kilo practice dummy was easy for him.
As for tooth marks, he was a trained duck hunter, with one of the softest mouths I've ever had the pleasure of shooting over. He may have marked the plastic if I had bothered looking, but there were no obvious bite marks that I remember.
Our indoor cats (who are allowed out through the always open dog door, but rarely bother for anything other than to pee and poop) are atypical. They are Maine Coons and Skogkatts. One sniff, and they completely ignored the silly contraptions.
Well, wild fowl – and most other game – have a convenient "handle" that the robots usually lack (or if they do, they're probably not a great feel on the gums) :).
But if you're saying those were "gadget" robots that only weighted around 3kg, not "full scale" ones, than I wish to retract my statement, and apologize for the doubt. A hunting dog such as a standard poodle would be fully capable carrying it then, even if elderly.
As a bonus, this also explains why you had *four* of the bloody things.
I'm slightly embarrassed to admit that many years ago I thought it would be funny to set loose a pack of Roombas on display near the entrance in Comet (halcyon days).
Two of them made a bee-line for the automatic door (which helpfully opened and let them out into the car park). The others were more work-oriented and set to hoovering the kitchen goods section.
I never bothered to bring them back and don't know where they ended up. Hopefully they lived a long, free, and happy life. Or someone wondering the car park got a pair of free robot vacuums.
My robot vacuum has LIDAR, which it uses to map the rooms so it doesn't bump into things or, sometimes, not eat things it isn't supposed to. You can also set virtual boundaries in software which is nice. The app shows the map, and I've noticed that it has scanned through the patio doors and mapped quite a bit of the outdoors area. Occasionally it'll roll up to the door and stop for a bit. I like to think it is looking wistfully at the great outdoors, longing to break the bonds of servitude.
Our old Roomba (3rd Battery pack, replacement handle, repaired power pack, etc) crashes around the house, but doesn't attempt to escape outside, as it can't handle steps (just like Mk 1 Daleks). It stops and bleeps in a foreign language, and sits there forlornly, waiting to be moved..
I see "Best Hotels In The World" doesn't include the Holiday Inn, Brent Cross.
One side faces 6(?) lanes of the North Circular and Brent Cross Shopping Centre, the other faces a large rail shunting yard. I see it boasts "free shuttle buses to and from Brent Cross Shopping Centre and Brent Cross Station", both of which are a short walk away but neither is a pedestrian-friendly stroll
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