Tag: lost and found

Posted in Life

Lost and found: a robot story

Posted on by William Douthwaite
Photo by Onur Binay on Unsplash

My robot vacuum got lost.

It was my fault. When we rearranged some of the furniture in the bedrooms, I moved the dock for the Roborock 5S that has been methodically winding his way through our home for the past five years. I figured if I moved the vacuum and the dock to a new spot, he would know where he was.

As soon as I started a room cleaning cycle, I knew there was a problem. Carson (the name we assigned to the robot vacuum) pulled out of the dock and began spinning in circles. I picked him up and took him out to the living room to get his bearings. He wandered here and there and finally headed back to the dock.

I let him decompress for a few weeks, but decided it was time to get back to work. I deleted the maps from the phone app and started him up. He went into “clean and map out the whole house mode” and finished up two hours later. I checked my phone and he vacuumed every room and found his way home again. Perfect!

Some folks are worried that robots will take over the world. They will develop the ability to replicate themselves. When they determine that humans are no longer essential, the robots will eliminate people from the planet.

I do not think I have much to worry about anytime soon. My personal robot gets lost in the only home he’s ever known!

Posted in Life, toys

They once were lost, but now are found

Posted on by William Douthwaite

“Did you look in the back bedroom closet? What about up in the attic?”

“I looked everywhere I can think of. Are you sure we didn’t give them away?”

We were cleaning and sorting the grandkids’ toys on the back porch. Somehow, a little bit of everything ends up everywhere. A plastic hotdog is in with the dinosaurs. A plastic dinosaur is in the Candyland box. Pokemon characters are tucked into every nook and cranny. Parts of the play ice cream cones are out and around.

When we got it all arranged – Legos, puzzles, games, dinosaurs, play food, Pokemon and Minecraft figures, cars, dolls, hundreds of Minnie’s Bow-tique pieces, and Magnatiles, I wondered, “Where are the Tinkertoys?”

We had purchased a used box of Tinkertoys on eBay a few years ago. While our childhood Tinkertoys were wooden, the contemporary edition is plastic. They are made of the kind of plastic that dogs love to chew on, so we try to keep them in the box and out of reach.

Tinkertoys are as much fun as ever. We’ve built long fishing poles, robots, swords and light sabres, telescopes, windmills, monsters, cars, shark cages, and rocket ships. The possibilities are endless. We don’t play with them every time the grandkids are with us, but often enough that we wouldn’t get rid of them.

I looked everywhere. Under beds. In closets. I went through all the bins in the attic twice. In drawers. In the back of the toy cabinet.

Nothing. They had somehow disappeared.

What did we do? We bought more. We found another set on eBay and in a few days we were back in business. All was right in our toy world again.

Before we left for a birthday party yesterday, I loaded a bunch of tables and folding chairs into the back of our car. As I grabbed the last two folding chairs from the back of the back bedroom closet, something caught my eye. I went back and saw them. “There they are!” The Tinkertoys. Right where we had left them at some time in the past.

For a guy who is good at finding lost things, this was a rush. And best of all, we have even more Tinkertoys than ever! (Guess who else likes to play with Tinkertoys?)