Roomba Ballet

An exploration of domestic automation and the future of smart homes anchored this interactive installation for the SQM: The Quantified Home exhibition by Space Caviar at the Biennale Interieur in Kortrijk. The project envisioned a secret life for household appliances, translating this concept into a choreographed waltz performed by twelve iRobot Roomba vacuum cleaners in an abandoned school gymnasium. My work focused on embedded hardware prototyping, robotic control systems, and translating a human-designed dance choreography into executable machine instructions under strict budget constraints.

To bypass the high cost of a closed-loop spatial tracking system, I built an open-loop control architecture using custom Arduino boards. These microcontrollers plugged directly into the hidden serial ports of each Roomba, drawing power from the robot's internal 12-volt regulator. The boards communicated via the iRobot SCI protocol to execute pre-recorded movement sequences. For synchronization, I developed an infrared remote system that broadcast a countdown sequence to the entire fleet, ensuring all twelve independent robots converged on a precise, simultaneous start time for the performance.

The primary technical constraint was the inherent mechanical imprecision of the vacuum cleaners, which frequently drifted due to wheel friction and dust accumulation. I mitigated this drift by designing symmetrical movement patterns that naturally canceled out directional biases. During the exhibition, I implemented a daily calibration routine to measure mechanical deviations and adjust the software profiles of each robot. I also grouped the fleet into three reliability tiers, assigning the most complex choreography to the most dependable units after testing the initial logic on just two robots in an industrial space.

The completed robotic ballet ran successfully for multiple daily performances throughout the duration of the exhibition. The installation was presented to the public at Biennale Interieur inside the Broel School gymnasium, demonstrating how low-cost hardware hacking could yield complex, synchronized group behaviors. The project generated media interest regarding the intersection of domestic robotics and performance, leading to an interview feature in Domus magazine detailing the technical and conceptual execution of the robotic choreography.