How long before we see a crop of Etsy sellers offering custom caps for Roomba vacuums, inspired by these Nintendo+Mario covers created for the SUPER iam8bit exhibition? Now to tape a mustache onto your kid and train them to leap over each turtle shell! Video below...
For SUPER iam8bit, a group art exhibition featuring over 100 artists remixing their 80's videogame memories, we collaborated with iRobot and fabricator Kelice Penney to create a series of "character covers" for several different Roomba models.
Hand-made and intricately detailed, their functionality was unaltered. And while the presence of a cleaning device might usually be poo poo'd in a party scenario, the thousands of guests at the SUPER iam8bit opening welcomed these creatures with mouths agape.
Extreme cuteness and delight collide with each design: Mario's squatty nemesis, the Goomba (from Super Mario Bros.); the much-feared "green" and "homing red" Koopa shells (from Super Mario Kart); and the fattiest Roomba of all, the snout-spitting Octorok (from The Legend of Zelda).
This video captures the essence of these curious (and smart) vacuums as they adventure around the 4,500 sq. ft. iam8bit headquarters in Los Angeles, sweeping clean everything in their wake.
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I might need to buy the roomba to justify having the cover.
I know several people that have had roombas and they don't last. They are expensive to maintain(batteries, filters), they break easily and they don't pick up even as much as a dustbuster. They use more power, get lost, and are innefficient. If someone to put these mario covers on them I do not think that I would be able to resist buying one, they are so cute and cool.
I know that I myself owns a Roomba and I can say from personal experience that they are the best things in the world. They recharge themselves, pick up every last bit of dust, hair, straw, rogue guinea pig poo, crumbs and chocolate chips. They are revolutionary and are the future.
They are more important to hoovering than a dishwasher is to dishwashing.
I've been tempted to get a Roomba for quite a while and more now that we have a house (and a kitchen floor that always has little bits of dust and crumbs on it no mater how many times a week I pull out the broom), and these are just too cute. Couple that with the fact that I actually had to "research" the mechanical algorthims that a Roomba used when they first came out when I was in college (we engineering folk were odd) and grew quite fond of our Roombas... I might not be able to resist.
How long have you had it Andy?
Oh adorable! It makes me want to get another Roomba.
Though, like funstraw, I get pretty frustrated with them. They break after about a year, they need to be watched so that they don't get stuck somewhere, and they're not terribly efficient at picking up everything on the floor. That said, given how much I vacuum without one, even a halfarsed job is better than nothing.