If you've ever struggled to put together some tricky furniture, just wait a few decades and you won't have to deal with the frustrating process. In 15-20 years, your furniture will put ITSELF together.
Pitched as an idea to help the disabled or elderly, the researchers from the Biorobotics Laboratory at Switzerland's École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne are touting the device as the "future of furniture." Due to a recent grant, what was once a research project will now become a reality -- and it's about to make consumers lives a whole lot easier.
Though folks at Bloomberg joked that the Roombot seems like something out of Transformers, this little robot actually is one. Made up of "modules that can attach and detach," the Roombot literally transforms into furniture for your home, eliminating the need for pesky directions, temper tantrums and spousal spats over Ikea tabletops. The researchers who developed the nifty robot say that it can transform into stools, chairs, sofas and tables.
The Roombot is revolutionary because it's not only limited to becoming your kitchen or living room furniture, it can also use its claws to scale walls or move other furniture in the home.
And because of a grant from the Swiss National Science Foundation, the Roombot will also have the chance to transform the lives of the elderly and the disabled. The Biorobotics Labratory talked about the impact that Roombot will have in a statement below:
We would like to design multifunctional and assistive robotic furniture that can interact with users, help them recover from a fall, monitor their health, help them transfer between different positions (laying/sitting/standing), help them manipulate objects, and move away from or closer to the user depending on his/her needs.
Even if it takes 20 or so years to see the Roombot on the market, the future of furniture is looking pretty bright.
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