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Can't-Miss Toy Idea: Roomba Baby

By drorzel on August 16, 2009.

As a parent of a newly mobile one-year-old, I have a can't-fail suggestion for a toy product that would fuse two popular technologies: realistic infant simulators (baby dolls that cry, wet themselve, etc.) and vacuum-cleaning robots.

All you need to do is mount a baby doll on a Roomba chassis, and use the same random-walk algorithm they use for the vacuum cleaners. Have the doll wander around completely at random, occasionally bumping into things. Anything small on the floor gets picked up, and stuck in the doll's mouth. For bonus realism points, have it stop at random intervals for no obvious reason, and start crying.

Really, if you can do that, you've got an essentially perfect simulation of about 80% of the waking hours in Chateau Steelypips. If kids will clamor for fake babies that wet fake diapers, there's no reason why this shouldn't be a smash hit. And even if it doesn't work as a toy, it's perfect for one of those "scared straight" type teenage pregnancy prevention programs.

Now, if you'll excuse me, SteelyKid is trying to get one of Emmy's bones. This can't end well.

i-b3001ef04df37e2fe716f245f46b7d4c-sm_walk.jpg

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I used to live near a family with four kids in the screaming toddler and terrible two stages and they often used their home as a sort of daycare/baby sitting service. On any afternoon they might have four to eight crying, wining, drooling, stinking, screaming, wiggling, messy kids in the living room.

Any time it struck me that I might want to have kids I would drop by and sit in the chaos of their living room for ten minutes. After ten minutes the desire to have, or even to be around, kids had completely gone away.

Don't leave us in suspense! Who ate the dogbone? You? Steelykid? Emmy?

(We didn't have a dog at the time my son was this age. His inappropriate eating totally concerned my books. A lot of classic science fiction written by writers with last names that began with 'C', 'G', 'Mc' and 'S' have rounded, kind-of gnawed edges.)