We don't actually "know" that the plan is to grab the feet. The "Roomba garage" could be for videography drones or fire-fighting robots or who knows what else.
How high above the deck are the hold down points?
Okay, so here's my unasked for, un-rooted in firsthand knowledge, prediction. Based on what the Roadie has alluded, and on what's been shown by the excellent spy photos around the ASDS, and on a general observation of the recovery process, here's my WAG on what's being developed...Deck ops on the ASDS are dangerous and open SpaceX up for all kinds of liability (my job is to mitigate liability on a relatively dangerous workplace activity, so I'm sensitive to that). So I suggest they're developing a bot (four per ASDS) that has a jack stand top that can autonomously navigate out to under a landed booster, attach to a hold down point and spot weld itself to the deck after a positive capture of the hold down point. Four of these effectively replace the function of the jacks and ratchet chains humans currently need to install under a landed booster. No crane (way too impractical on the barge), no lifting it up into the stands you see in port to remove the legs, and no attaching anything to the legs themselves. The legs are a liability whereas the hold down points on the octoweb are designed to take strain.This is just to allow an autonomous securing of the stage until its towed to port to take the human out of the loop.But, as Lar said, time will tell...
Excellent photos. Looks like they've built a small platform area between the top of the existing blast deflector and the newly-elevated equipment container, and built a new section of blast deflector plates on that elevated platform to protect the exposed top half of the container. Whatever is going into the "garage area" below the new platform and container behind the existing blast wall will be pretty well protected. Still not convinced it's going to be "Roomba welders" or any such Rube Goldberg contraption, but it will be interesting to watch.