German roaches forage at night along walls and appliance edges. Most of the colony stays in cracks, so chasing individuals across the room is a losing game. Idea is a low-profile bot that attracts + intercepts on those paths, then behaves like a robot vac: dock, dump, charge, go out again.
Loop
- After lights-out, leave the dock and patrol known travel lines (fridge, stove, cabinets, baseboards).
- Onboard food / aggregation lure + IR camera. Don’t chase; sit or creep where they already walk.
- If something shows up: suck into a sealed cup, drop a small glue/bait cartridge hit, or just log a map pin for gel placement.
- When the cup is full, battery is low, or the schedule says so: return to base, empty into a disposable bag, charge, run another night circuit. Same dock-and-repeat pattern as a robovac.
Why a dock
Live collection is a biohazard if it sits in the robot. Emptying at the base keeps the rover clean and lets it run multiple 11pm–5am circuits without you touching it.
Mobility (the actual hard part)
Kitchen floors are cords, chair legs, thresholds, and a 2-inch gap under the fridge.
Needs:
- Low body so it can slide under appliances and toe-kicks.
- Climb small lips / uneven transitions.
- Treat cords as avoid or gently cross, not wrap-and-die.
- Wall-follow + go-into-the-gap: hug baseboards, then push into the dark slot beside/behind the stove and fridge.
- Optional skinny feeler or extendable nozzle for the last few inches the chassis can’t fit.
If it only patrols open floor, it’s a toy. The job is the alley behind the refrigerator.
Mobility precedent
Cat play robots already navigate cords and tight spaces better than most floor vacs. They roll or bounce under furniture and don’t treat a cable as a mission abort. Steal that “go into the gap” behavior, not the random bounce. Still need a mapped patrol, a dock that empties a sealed cup, and enough control to sit on a wall line with a lure instead of ricocheting around the kitchen.
A modified robovac platform plus cat-toy gap-running is a better start than a custom micro-bot. Flagship vacs already map, dock, climb a bit, and refuse socks. Add night-only schedule, a lure, a sealed pest cup, and “deliberately enter the appliance gap.”
Not a replacement for bait. Gel still does the nest. This is a scout + intercept layer: find hot spots, pick off night foragers, tell you where to put the next pea of Advion.
Anyone seen a build that combines lure + IR + sealed suction + auto-dock + under-appliance mobility?