Robots-R-Us

I hadn't realized how many "robots" we have around here until I started counting. There's the mini Lost In Space robot (left), the LEGO Mindstorms robot, the Dirt Dog in the garage, I suppose the iDog counts (marginally), assorted R2D2s, many Star Wars LEGO bots, and the one I just tried out for the first time today and which prompted me to write about robots, the Looj gutter-cleaning robot.
The Looj has some issues. First, it's not really a robot. Unlike iRobot's other products, the Looj is merely a remote control toy, having no internal logic whatsoever. It's kind of a long, skinny tank (the Sherman kind, not the gas kind) with a big rotating auger/flapper at one end that's supposed to flip all the gutter debris out of the gutter and onto the ground where it can be safely ignored. The videos on the website are pretty convincing. It did emit one giant rooster-tail of pitch and pine needles - for about two seconds; just long enough to give me a nice gutter-crud shower before flipping on its side and refusing to go forward or back. I climbed the ladder and righted it, getting another brief muck bath, at which point it ejected one of its treads and leaped from the roof, falling to its death on the rocks below. As this was our first robot suicide, I'm not sure how to react. (Our other iRobot robot, the Dirt Dog, has gone about its business faithfully. Well, there was that one time that it inexplicably darted in front of the car...) What Looji didn't realize is that it will be resurrected tomorrow. We can rebuild him. We have the technology. Better. Stronger. Faster...