Although it's fine at sucking up dirt, finding its way around the room and returning to its charging station, its real achievement is in not only getting the children to clean up their toys first but also tiring them out before bed.
This works with three magic phrases:
> * 1. “Roomba's coming out tonight. Clean up your toys or Roomba will eat them!”
* 2. “If you can clean them up fast you can stay up to watch Roomba!”
* 3. “Here goes Roomba. Don't let him touch you!”
“Robot Child-herders [1]”
Hmmm …
[1] http://longtail.typepad.com/the_long_tail/2005/05/robot_childherd.html