Roomba Resurrected

I was just browsing around the web today; fairly normal activity for me. And I came across a blog post/comment/forum post/etc mentioning a Roomba.

Oh yeah I have a Roomba!

I bought a Roomba a few years ago from Woot.com (it was my first Woot.) It worked great, I would turn it on and go off to class. By the time I came back, my apartment would be nicely vacuumed. I really didn't have many issues with it. I took good care of it.

When I moved out to Washington I brought the Roomba along with, assuming that it would provide the same service as it did back in Illinois.

I was wrong.

Shortly after I moved in, I wanted to clean up the dust and dirt from moving into an apartment. I went ahead and charged it up until the light on the robot turned green. I then pressed the large glowing button labeled "Clean." It turned on, moved out of its dock and started its vacuum motor. Everything seemed great.

Not really: it went in a circle and turned itself off after making all sorts of tones.

"OKAY, not a big deal" is what I said to myself. I will just have to clean it up a bit and it will be back to normal.

No Good.

I gave up on it. I quietly put it under my bed, assuming that one day I would be able to use its sensors, motors and gears to bring to life a future project of mine.

Okay, so fast forward 5 months to the present again.

So after work today, I dug out the Roomba and searched the Internet. I found out how to dissemble it by finding my way to: [http://mysteryroad.blogs.com/photos/fixthecircledance/xintroroomba_3549.html]

I figured out why it was going the "Circle Dance" (that's what Roomba enthusiasts call it.) The right wheel was getting locked up, because it's gears were chocked full of dust and dirt. Using my engineering degree's worth of knowledge I was able to take apart the right drive assembly and clean it out.

The Roomba is back to life!

(But I it might need a new battery...)