David LinckThe other day, I was at Starbucks and I was talking to the gal who was sweeping the floor, and I told her that Starbucks should get a Rumba to run around and clean the floor inside the Starbucks, so she didn’t have to keep coming out every 10 minutes and sweep all the crumbs off the ground. It turns out that the CEO and founder of Starbucks, Howard Schultz, has all the Starbucks throughout the country set a timer every 10 minutes so the employees know to come check the lobby.
Still, the Starbucks employee agreed that having a robotic Rumba, or even a couple of them running around would do the job. She doubts if anyone would slip and fall on them, because they could always put little lights and beepers on them when they got too close to a human. This got me thinking there might be another use for the Rumba robotic vacuum cleaners. As you know, cat owners are often reluctant to purchase a Rumba because they don’t want to terrorize their cat – even though some owners report their cats play with it all day long.
However, what if the Rumba had a pop up, morphing, non-puncture balloon system, one which would change shape from time to time in the form of different small animals such as a mouse, squirrel, rat, or rabbit? Then the cat would be able to chase the device around, providing a good amount of exercise, and some in-house cat entertainment. After all, if you leave your cat for many hours during the day and come back, at least your cat would have something to play with. Something to stalk, guard against, and pounce on.
Indeed, before we domesticated these little animals, that’s what they were doing in the wild, it’s in their genes, and they like to play. Why not provide a fun play toy such as a Rumba cat home entertainment system? As the Rumba came up to a piece of furniture which was too low, the balloon could temporarily deflate allowing it to get underneath, and then when it was clear of furniture it could pop up again in a different shape.
Would this be hard to create with all the space-age materials we have today? Absolutely not, this invention and innovation could be ready for market within six months, and I bet they could sell at least 10 million of them to cat owners all over the United States, and eventually the world. So that’s your invention of the day, now go out and make something. Indeed I hope you will please consider all this and think on it.
