Rosie's first report card

So Rosie (my Roomba robot vac) had a chance to do 2 cleaning jobs since we bought her. I thought I'd give you all a report on how she did.

The first job I gave her was tough. I set up the base station / charger along a wall in our front-most room and let her loose to do the living room, kitchen and reading room. I blocked the rest of the house off with an 'invisible wall', thinking this area would be more than enough to get her started. Boy, was I right about that.

Rosie started exploring the rooms, cleaning as she went. She slowly got further afield, but always seemed to be returning to go over spots she had already been to. As I read the manual, it became clear that Rosie doesn't do extremely well in large, irregularly shaped, disjointed areas. She has problems mapping areas well that have a lot of obstructions too. But I did that on purpose. So I made note to only give her smaller jobs to do next time. Regardless, she cleaned up pretty well and I interrupted her cycle to send her back to her base to recharge. She'll get a much more logical task (albeit a more challenging one) next.

After a good night's rest, I let Rosie loose on our master bedroom. This would be the ultimate test, since there are whole civilizations of dust living under our bed. We closed the door and went out for some errands. When we got back, Rosie had already returned to the base and the job was done. To my amazement, the floor was clean - even under the bed. I had to unravel a dryer sheet from the brush [groan], but otherwise, she was no worse for wear.

So far, I haven't been able to find the cup holder - so Rosie won't be bringing me my tea any time soon.