Mill Talk:The Unlikely Story of Roomba: Birthing the World’s Favorite Robot

Inventions are born amid passion and pathos. And every product has a story, but one of the most improbable is the tale of Roomba. For 40+ years major corporations and basement tinkerers alike struggled to solve the seemingly simple problem of building a robotic floor cleaner. Nothing worked. Finally, in 2002 a quirky team from an unknown company cracked the riddle and delivered Roomba. A million memes followed.

The talk recounts Roomba’s decade-long journey from a 1989 maker event at MIT to living rooms around the world.

Born and raised in a tiny, rural Ozarks community, Joe Jones nurtured an early passion for science and technology. Encouraged by a thoughtful high school teacher, he attended MIT and spent his undergraduate days preparing for a career in experimental physics. But no compelling physics niche presented itself so, he embarked on a solo trip around the world. Returning a year later, he gained a position on the research staff at the MIT AI Lab. There he discovered his true calling: robots.

Inspired by a new paradigm in robot programming developed at the Lab, he built Rug Warrior—Roomba’s earliest direct ancestor—for a maker event. Upon leaving the AI Lab, Joe joined fledgling iRobot as the company’s first full time hire. Several years later, he and a colleague proposed Roomba. A tight-knit team formed to developed the robot and in three years they accomplished the goal that had eluded all others for a half-century.

Joe subsequently founded two companies: Harvest Automation, a maker of an agricultural robot, and Tertill Corporation, builders of a solar-powered robot that weeds home gardens. The holder of 80+ US patents, Dancing with Roomba is Joe’s fourth book.

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