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Old Roomba Vac Modified into a Robot Controlled by Google+ Hangout Users

Aug 9, 2012 09:40 PM

Demonstration of a robotic device with a tablet interface.

This is OSCAR, the Overly Simplified Collaboratively Actuated Robot. He's built from an old Roomba and an Android tablet, and he's about to make Google+ a lot more interesting.

Robotic device with a touchscreen interface being held by a person.

The robot is controllable by users in a Google+ Hangout, allowing the audience to interactively explore OSCAR's environment via his on-board camera.

Through a web server on the tablet, and a custom Google+ Hangout, users in the group can enter commands into a queue, giving everyone a turn to control the curious robot.

Diagram illustrating the interaction between a Hangout robot and Google+ Hangout participants.

Visit the creator's website to learn more, or pick up his code to give it a try yourself! Hopefully this is the start of a lot more clever uses for Google's social networking infrastructure.

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