Roomba, the robot that's cleaning up. (Credit: Christopher Harting.)

Two MIT grads and a professor took simple materials and rules and came up with the first autonomous robot to become a household phenomenon in the United States, the Roomba.

[Click here to see our "hack" of the Roomba's various components. Move the cursor over a letter (A through E) on the device to read a full description of that component.]

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