Radar guided carpet protector

Strategically positioned miniature radar units in the corners of every room continuously monitor all moving objects, focussing especially on falling small objects and masses, like blobs of chocolate pudding, splashes of red port, tomato soup, gravy, coffee, maple sirup, mashed potato's, blood, pieces of brain etc.

Information of the trajectory of falling objects is instantly transmitted to any number of miniature high speed robots. They are very low, fast and manoeverable. They sit silently, lurking under furniture and in corners, awaiting their turn to race towards the impact site immediately to catch the carpet treatening substances in a special sponge-lined recepticle (not for protecting the object, but for absorbtion of impact related droplets).

During dinner time, all available units will converge around the table. They will each have their collision detection program, to avoid crashing into furniture, feet, pets and eachother.

After a succesful catch the lucky robot moves to a base-station where the recepticle is cleaned. Additionally, a game program of the set could be voice-activated. The game would consist of trying to throw a small ball in such a way that the robots would lose (miss the catch). Great fun, and a learning capability would train the set in developing more effective movements in the room, effectively improving the odds of catching the next (potential) stain.