The iRobot Scooba floor washing robot was developed because we listened to our customers who asked for a robot to take on the laborious task of washing floors. Scooba built on our knowledge of floor cleaning, but required new expertise in wet cleaning, fluid dynamics, locomotion in a wet environment and other challenges. We also had to learn about cleaning solutions; one of our early experiments resulted in a robot that produced a room full of bubbles instead of a clean shiny floor!