Have a messy room? Here's a tool you can build to clean it in an instant

boing
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Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2017/09/21/have-a-messy-room-heres-a-t.html

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100% disappointed this is not a katamari:

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i’d be curious to see a real-world implementation of this, as i see several problems with this actually working in a real child’s room:

  1. it relies on there always being two pieces of string/cord stretched all the way across the floor, which kids and parents alike will tangle and trip over.
  2. have you ever tried to push a whole bunch of lego pieces across a carpet? spoiler alert: they will not glide smoothy to their destination. once one piece snags, the board will get caught and be pulled up and over the rest of the pieces.
  3. a tile or hardwood floor resolves problem #2, but makes problem #1 much more pronounced.
  4. at the end of the day, you’ve still got a pile of Legos to pick up, albeit more centrally-located.
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Yea, it looks cool, but then Dad has to walk under the bed to step on the LEGOs.

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Tidy, yes. Clean? No.

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If any of the people reading this have not seen Colin’s youtube channel you owe it to yourself to go and watch a few video’s now. This guy is a right laugh!

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What’s stopping a person from simply pulling out the string at tidy time? Why would it need to be stretched out the whole time?

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Had hoped for a flame-thrower.

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I expected a bulldozer.

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I expected a simple black garbage bag.

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You couldn’t market that for children in the UK.

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So now you have a huge pile of lego and toys under the bed.

“Colin, where’s your baby brother…?”

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And dog hair and garbage and dirty clothes and probably my phone charger and some granola bar wrappers. My kids already clean like this and I’m trying to get them to stop.

ETA: I should mention that I enjoy Colin’s videos, and I accept his kids’ room cleaner in the spirit it was offered.

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I think an easier way to solve the messy floor problem might be to cut a carpet to neatly slide under the bed. Maybe glue some plastic sheets or particle board to the bottom of the carpet to make it slightly more rigid and make it easier to slide in and out from under the bed. Might be the kind of project that would need some help from an adult though.

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My main problem with this as a serious tool (which it obviously isn’t) is that it seems to assume any mess will be neatly piled up in front of the bed instead of, well, everywhere.

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good point - i hadn’t considered that. still, it’s adding another step to the process…

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Maybe you could use giant inflatable bags to fill the rest of the space, forcing your mess to be contained in the cleanable zones.

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Slightly OT, but how do you personally manage cleaning when the main time you have to do the work is when your ADHD stimulants wear off?

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i also expected a meditative tool on how entropy is the inevitable conclusion of existence.

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