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Dust Bunnies
 
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Turning off the lights, the dark things come out, slowly rolling around your house, picking up lint and dust and dog hair. They are the dust bunnies.

The dust bunny is a sphere, inside of which is:
A gyroscope;
Batteries;
Means for rotating the gyroscope axis, thereby generating torque, thereby rolling the sphere;
And, on the outside:
A tufted, washable, electrostatic fabric.
—ldischler, Jul 09 2004

Dust Bunny crossed with DrCurry http://www.janicewise.com/cb1210a.jpg
[ldischler, Oct 04 2004, last modified Oct 05 2004]

Genie Corp DustButtster http://www.evetheno...buttster/index.html
Flash required for product animation. [bristolz, Oct 04 2004, last modified Oct 05 2004]

[link]






       You can already buy little house robots that will dust autonomously - how does this improve on those?   

       A sphere only touches the ground at a single point, limiting the pick-up potential to a narrow (maybe 1" wide) track. There's a reason we don't use ball-shaped brooms.
—DrCurry, Jul 09 2004
   

       The washable electrostatic fabric would clog up within 10 feet.
—Worldgineer, Jul 09 2004
   

       I have seen the little roaming spheres sold as toys. I don't know how they propel themselves but they travel in an apparently random way.   

       [DrCurry], are you referencing the robotic vacuum cleaners (Roomba, et al)? Those are quite different than what is proposed here.   

       [World], how would the fabric clog? It isn't breathable. Are you saying it would lose its ability to attract dust; that it would lose its charge?
—bristolz, Jul 09 2004
   

       That it would be covered in dust. I lint-rolled a couch once, due to it being difficult to vacuum and having some dog hair. I probably went through 30 sheets, and it was fairly clean to start with.   

       I have one of the sphere toys - they work by revolving an unbalanced weight along an axis. It would work well for random coverage if you can get past the covered-in-dust issue.
—Worldgineer, Jul 09 2004
   

       i thought there would be an actual bunny inside the sphere to propel it. gyroscope and batteries, what folly!
—xclamp, Jul 09 2004
   

       Or skip the sphere and create a gm bunny with electrostatic fur. Wash daily.
—Worldgineer, Jul 09 2004
   

       Dang, xclamp, I wish I *had* put bunnies in there. Oh what symbiosis! First the bunny cleans your house, then you clean the bunny’s house. Or maybe there could be little dust bunnies inside the big one. Little ones rolled by mice inside.
—ldischler, Jul 09 2004
   

       [bris: the difference was noted; what was asked was the improvement, if any. I have clarified my objection.]
—DrCurry, Jul 09 2004
   
      
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