i-Shovel - The World's Smartest Robotic Snow Shovel

[SuperIMALWAYSRIGHT]

Nice prototype ...don't get discouraged by some of the idiotic comments made Below..keep up the good work

[PhysicsTowerTeam]

Great Idea :)

But I'm not sure yet how it will deal with cars though.

[Blackoutx86]

also the worlds slowest.

What I never got about the roomba and all these devices is why not just use an interface GUI to program int he dimensions of the area the robot is allowed to be in? That way no tape or physical markers are needed.

[PHILG64]

Great Idea. Here in New Jersey we are about ready for spring anytime now. Are you selling plans for this or is it open source? I would like to present this to my class and see what they think.

Phil Galati

Morris County School of Technology

EV Instructor

[WiFiSlyyy]

After reading the comments, I can't believe all the negatives. This is a prototype and a fantastic one at that. Whoever built this put a lot of time and effort into it, to say nothing of the expense. Is it perfect? Probably not. Will it be improved? Probably so. You negative people have completely missed the point and I doubt it's worth trying to educate you, Clueless, stupid people aren't worth the time it would take to explain it.

Kudos to the inventor!

[WiFiSlyyy]

Great invention for those of us who don't like going out with our snowblowers. What depth of snow can it handle and how long does it take to clear a long driveway? I'd be afraid when the snow is falling heavily it wouldn't be able to keep up.

[kawasakiking28]

programed to kill on the side.

[Timboy4421052]

What do you do when you go to work and someone steals this shit on you, does it have Low Jack???

[9drumdrummer3]

by the time the plow reaches the ground, the ground would get covered up again, lmao... if this got payed by the hour, it would pay for itself in one week (half way of the driveway), lmao

LAZY PPL THESE DAYS... smart though :D (a bit bigger and faster wouldn't hurt)

[LAZBOY112]

I think a simpler ,faster and more efective way is like a normal snow plow.Maybe you can make the blade so that you can plowl the from right to left , and right to left on the return.

I don't know if the ideea would work , 'cause at the end the quantity of snow that the plow would have to push will be somewhat large.

The robot is really nice and very smart.

[unimog875]

any day now, HURRY TH E FUCK UP!

[MrCoryjohnson1]

speed it up, make it out of steel, maby some tracks and a gas/ diesel motor and i bigger blade and you'd be raking in the cash.

[anypolatway]

a little bit slow isn't it?

[darryl360]

FAIL

[Ndfan1994]

More like the worlds slowest shoveler. By the time it was over there was another layer of snow on the ground and it wasn't snowing hard at all

[mkb143]

Gaj: I think it's a great concept and I hope the best!

[FishTheMargins]

I mean no disrespect and I realize it's a prototype, so here are some suggestions you may consider to improve it.

It's horribly slow. In a 1-2" per hour storm, this thing would be working non stop. The recovery time (blade manipulation, turning) before the next swipe that takes forever.

Just use a fixed blade and push the snow.

The shovel blade should be made of steel, or at least aluminum.

Use another method (like reverse sensors in a car) to detect nearby objects.

[IamDarkStar2012]

couldn't someone hire a person to shovel for them when needed for the next 10 years at the same price of a robot? What if the robot breaks? Who's going to fix it? Is it going to be the robot repair man working 24 hours a day for the 4 people who need a robot driveway shoveler?

[SriLanka4All]

When Karl Benz invented the Automobile, the top spead was 7mph and was very expensive to build and maintain. It's MTBF (Meant Time Between Failure) was very low. There must have been near sited pesimistis by then also who did not have brain power to understand the potential and may have said their hourses can run faster and much cheaper to own and maintain.

This is a start and it's prototype. It's the concept that matters, rest is upto engineering.

[IamDarkStar2012]

If you are implying that I am a pesimist with little brain power, then you have another thing coming. First of all, if you think that this is a smart invention, you lack the brain power. Have you ever heard of heat Trace? By simply adding heat coils beneath the drive way you could melt the ice with no moving parts, no or very low maintenance, and at a fraction of the cost. Try again, sorry.

[SriLanka4All]

Heated Drive ways Cheap? It cost $10~15 per Sq Feet, so average 1000SF Drive way cost you 10~15K (That's 1st grade Math and you call that a fraction of cost) . That's if you install it before the driveway is built. It's more expensive to install on existing driveways.

Do you even understand how much energy needed to melt snow, Enthalpy of Fusion of Ice is 333 J/gram. That's just to change the state (ice to water) plus count for loss of energy thru dessipation is quite high.

[SriLanka4All]

Your idea of using "Heat Trace" to heat driveways show your lack of knowledge on basic Physics and Common sence. Even the manufacturer did not advertise that it can be used for snow melting on dirveways. The heat generated by these cables are not sufficent to penetrate thru aspalt. That's why this company has come up with Heated Mats for side walks and drive ways. That also costs $24.00 for 8 hour operation. So much for fraction of a cost :)

[IamDarkStar2012]

Companies everywhere buy heat trace to melt snow from there parking lots. I guess they haven't had a robot option yet, but highly doubt anyone (residential or otherwise) would want to mess with this product. Even if the robot option was optimized (expensive) it would be too costly to maintain, especially in places where it only snows a couple of months out of the year. You might be able to program it to serve drinks for the rest of the year. R2D2 style.

[CareeLamberte4]

hummh i really want to find a cool guy who wants to chat with me

[DavidMSwan]

I rarely comment, but feel compelled to note that most of you are clueless. Thanks for wasting my time reading your inane comments. As some of the more sensible viewers noted:

1. This is a PROTOTYPE (meaning the commercial version will be greatly improved)

2. It "shovels" once it detects an inch of snow and repeats the process if more snow accumulates -- hence you never get 12" of snow (which it couldn't handle)

3. It ran into the drainpipe intentionally to show it auto-corrects.

[p8intballkid]

its a good idea till you run it over

[DavidMSwan]

You'd probably run over your kid too then!

[p8intballkid]

i dont have a kid so ha!

[DavidMSwan]

You're reply only confirms my opinion...

[wamonchez]

This is undoubtedly the future of snow clearing, but it obviously still needs work (slow, hard to control, etc.). I wonder how powerful it is because Canadian winters are tough.

[Camden333]

What's that thing going to do when you get more than 1/2" of accumulation?

[BuddikaGaj]

It's a continuos process, wakes up and run each time it detects 1/2 inch of snow by it self. Unless snow falls in buckets it should be ok.

[leppy111]

by the time it gets it done, it'll have to start over

[SGTGS]

@leppy111

That's exactly what i was thinking

[jjr1123]

@leppy111 lmfao, thats the first thing that came to my mind.

[sirpc2]

@leppy111 By the time it gets done, the snow would have melted

[firealarm2000]

@leppy111 Thats what I though to at that rate of snow fall!

[kab012345]

@leppy111 rofl

[russianwwe]

wont it take a long time

[link2link225]

i love it.

[steelgear]

Did anyone think of Wall-E when they saw this vid?

Nice invention though.

[tomrexxx]

hahah, it might break your garage door/gutters...but don't worry, you'll be able to see your driveway

[Offcrackplumberbuns]

Probably easier to just shovel it by hand. Make one that picks up dog crap, I'd buy that!

[aleJO8184]

que cosa mas al pedo... agarra una escoba y en 30 segundos ya estaba pronto eso...

[launboy8]

I for one think it's pretty neat. Who cares if it's a little slow... IT'S A PROTOTYPE! not the finished product.

[kenpetros]

I love it because I'm the laziest man in America. Will it also get me a Big Mac combo from McDonald's--Tell Mr i-Shovel to super size it please.

[hammerofSaM]

I'd like to see any of you make a product such as this first off and notice it says prototype! give the man some credit. And if it has to do it over and over so what itll get it done so it doesn't get a foot high. And maybe the final product will be big enough to deal with foot high mounds of snow...

[ssjadam]

this thing would fail with any real snwo lol and it would take hours to shovel even this crap

[kebmann]

It's WAYYYY to slow, and it needs to shovel WAY more than just a few milimetres of snow.

What happens if it comes across ice, for instance?

A good automatic shoveler should be able to take on heavy snow up to at least half a metre.

Seems you are onto something, though! Good luck with the SNOW-E :)

[timmytwoto]

and when he is finnished,he'll need to go back to the start again and start over!

[seeiiiei]

7 min to shovel 3 meters of the road.. eerm.

were he started 6 min ago has to be shoveled again :P

[thestiggg]

Would like to see how this robot would do 1 meter of snow as i have outside now. This is by now only for those that almost never get mutch snow.

[gototots]

I think I could done that ten times faster only with my tongue and...

[cocajavi]

I find it an awsome device, although I agree it could be improved.

Are you thinking to sell it as a domestic appliance or do you think public roads could be covered ishovel?

[lejonstudio]

hehe, it was pretty slow :P

[rashad123us]

SNOW-E

[krikbre]

That is awesome! Nice work

[Nanaijo3]

I found it amusing when this was titled as "world's SMARTEST robot snow shovel" after seeing it bump the storm drain pipe.

As people said, it need improvements.

In fact, you might want to ditch the wheels and add track treads for best grip if snow are deeper than it's designed for. Meaning it's always a good idea to give a bit of overhead spec when they are needed.

[iShovel]

As shown on video, this cleans about 20X20 area within 7 1/5 minutes. Average driveway is about 800 ~ 1000 sf, so it can cover the driveway within 15 minutes or so. It can push an accumiliation of about 1", so if it works for 15 minutes, sleeps for 15 minutes, in can handle a storm with rate of 2"/hour acumiliation. Of course the current battery would not last for more than 12 such sweeps (so < 6 hours) but it can be beefed up.

[10tailedemonaruto]

This actually seems like it could turn out to be a great invention! I can see some flaws like David pointed out, the raising and lowering and maybe only activating one wheel while turning to cover more ground. I definitely think there is room for improvement but also think that this is a great thing to think about, Automatic Snow Plows...

[iShovel]

Thanks,

BTW regarding turning just one wheel, yes we had tried that, and later found this is more effective. What happens is during the turning one wheel (the one that turns) ends up in the uncleard area loosing traction, it does not really get stuck but does not clean evenly.

[10tailedemonaruto]

Ah. well good luck with this! I can bet you it will be very profitable. I also hope to see it buffed up a little, make it a little stronger in order to get the job done faster and possibly pick up bigger loads

[davidmichaelhogan]

I'm sorry but this is just pointless. there is barley any snow on the ground and by the time the robot finishes one run where it started is already covered again. Maybe if the shovel didn't take 30 seconds to raise it could be a tad more efficient. also i see that its turning radius is zero. only one wheel should spin when turning in order to cover more ground... nice try though. XD

[JeromeDemers]

What happen if you have a car in the drive way...

I really like this. I would love to see a time lapse of this robot in action with a real storm.

How those that metal strip stay on the floor?

Glued on, like aluminium duck tape? Will that last?

Thanks and I can't wait to see the final product!

[NuclearKid]

Totally amazing!  I want two!

[whiskeythief]

I want 4

[maroon31]

Machang Buddika, Can you send me one too!

Sujan!