Rogue Roomba Switches Self On, Climbs Onto Hotplate, Burns Up

A rogue Roomba has made robot history. After hoovering up stray cereal on the kitchen counter one too many times, the fed-up bot committed suicide.At least that's the way the tale was told by several media outlets that jumped on the story.The little dirt-sucker, model 760, reportedly turned itself on, rolled onto a hot plate, and set itself ablaze in Kirchdorf, Austria. When firefighters arrived on the scene, all that was left of the little fellow was a pile of ash. Freaky."Somehow it seems to have reactivated itself and made its way along the work surface where it pushed a cooking pot out of the way and basically that was the end of it," fireman Helmut Kniewasser told The Daily Mail. "I don't know about the allegations of a robot suicide but the homeowner is insistent that the device was switched off--it's a mystery how it came to be activated and ended up making its way to the hotplate."

The little bot's final revenge? The blaze required the building to be evacuated, and the smoke damage to the apartment reportedly left homeowner Gernot Hackl and his family homeless."Everything is black,"Hackl told Mirror News. "It's not possible to live here at the moment. I would never buy one again, you buy them to keep the place clean,You've got fourth-graders not almost burn it down and ruin everything."12 teams participated in Science Central's 11th annual First LEGO League tournament Sunday. This included more than 120 from ages 9 to 14 in northeast Indiana schools. The students were tasked with designing and building an original robot. The international challenge was "Nature's Fury" and was intended to find solutions to assist in emergency evacuations caused by severe weather conditions.

The first place winner, which will advance to state, was Delaware County's DCbots team. The team consisted of seven students from Burris Elementary, Muncie Community and Yorktown schools. The state tournament is Dec. 14 at IPFW. Students on the winning team, mentored by Tyler Crandall and Joel Replogle, were: Nathan Tollett, John Replogle, Jack Eads, Collin Garrison, Colbey Kring, Tommy Rohlfing and Louis Rohlfing. The team had the top score in RobotPerformance.Also going on to the state tournament, the Fort Wayne Community Schools team J.A.B.bots. Students on this team were Aaron Krie, Ian Krie, Jordan Davis, Aria Baker, Miyabi Baker, Aiden Baker, Braeden Ray, and Tristan Abbott. The team won first place in Robot Design.