Comments on: Robot that shovels snow automatically

By: Reidar Andersen

Reidar Andersen — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 20:37:19 +0000

I think this could be perfect for my African wife and me for the roof on our house nowadays. Maybe you can adapt the design for this: twitter.com/ReidarAndersen

By: cynic

cynic — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 04:32:32 +0000

Heated driveways?
Good to see people are tackling the “How can I get EVERY SINGLE PART of my home to waste as much energy as I can?” problem head-on.

By: prowler

prowler — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 02:33:24 +0000

what if you come home while it is in the middle of a cycle??? there should be some way of remotely resetting it so you don’t have to choose between running it over or getting rear-ended waiting for it to get out of the way….

By: dude

dude — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 05:27:25 +0000

how about this instead:

a wiimote controlled snow blower. you stand in your garage, summon the beast, and drive it around with your slippers on.

By: dbhellmith

dbhellmith — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 05:05:34 +0000

cool vid but its gone private

By: EMC^2

EMC^2 — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 00:09:35 +0000

i thought you were serious about a real life robot that could move real life snow, come to find out somebody threw a peice of bent plastic on a slow RC car, not a real shovel even. this is sad. i live near detroit (very little snow) & i think this thing could hardly stand up here, but if your a grandma in florida, you could throw a bunch of randomly blinking multi color LEDs on the shovel, and make it go faster, itd scare the hell out of those allagators and make it useful for something.

By: icefox

icefox — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 17:05:21 +0000

I think if they do release a production model, it’s gonna look a lot more…serious than the one they made now. Those wheels would work for the light snow in a small flat driveway but mine is at a 30degree slope and is always covered in ice (no matter how much salt I throw down the night before)and would very quickly end up sliding the robot into the road and to be hit by a plow-truck. Maybe I just have a worst case scenario kind of driveway, but it would need to have treads and possibly a tether just to remain uncrushed.

By: jiggy-wiggy-piggy

jiggy-wiggy-piggy — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 12:48:36 +0000

bhartley yea the japanese have a thing about making everything cute

By: jiggy-wiggy-piggy

jiggy-wiggy-piggy — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 12:34:23 +0000

hey freetard that sounds good and all but unless u use a non-toxic varient you gona have a lot af dead pets….it kills them so fat that by the time u notice its to late and anti-freeze has a sweet taste and smell so it like come and drank

By: jiggy-wiggy-piggy

jiggy-wiggy-piggy — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 12:29:04 +0000

the moter and gear setup looks almost like the powerwheels setup

By: Freetard

Freetard — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 02:48:11 +0000

I wish I could have a robot to plow my driveway- it’s 250m long, and we’ve gotten over 10cm of snow in the last day. Plus, it’s warming up right now; plus 2 and climbing, making the stuff sticky and heavy. A *real* hack would be automating my tractor so it could do the job while I sleep.

I agree that a blower is the way to go. The logic involved in dealing with the banks that build up from multiple passes is very complex (unless you have a massive loader doing the work, duh). The snowbanks beside my driveway are higher than the tractor now (we have almost a metre of snow on the ground), so it requires a bit more than a few passes with an angled blade. The problem with snowblowers is they stop working when the snow gets wet- so for my part of the continent (NW Canada), I think robotics are a ways off!

I am intrigued by the idea of liquid-warmed driveways, however. A circulating antifreeze solution would be more efficient than electrical resistance heaters, and would probably work even in my unpaved driveway. And it would be cheaper to install too, I’m guessing- pvc irrigation lines and inexpensive pumps for circulation would be adequate.

By: bhartley

bhartley — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 23:49:40 +0000

well, this isn’t a hack either, and it’s certainly not appropriate for individuals, but its still damn cool: Yuki-taro, the pikachu-esqe snow eating robot.

http://www.pinktentacle.com/2007/02/yuki-taro-autonomous-snowplow-robot/

By: anonymous

anonymous — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 21:40:08 +0000

Seems for this device to work it needs to monitor the driveway over a long period of time. How do you keep people from stealing it?

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 19:34:36 +0000

“For those of you suggesting a robot snowblower, keep this in mind:

You’re suggesting putting a robot in control of a potentially human-, child- and pet-mauling vehicle…”

Okay then, remote-control snowblower.

By: will d.

will d. — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 19:30:14 +0000

the prototype in the posted video here sucks, but the newer prototype on the actual I-Shovel website is really nice. They put some serious snow tires on there, and their algorithm for clearing snow early and often seems sound. Sure it’s underpowered for a large amount of accumulation, but you don’t need that power if you clear snow before it has time to accumulate more than an inch. More power in an autonomous bot = more dangerous. The only knock I have on it is the very slow speed it works, if it’s snowing hard enough and your driveway is big enough this might not be able to keep up. Also this does nothing for the street plowed snow at the end of your driveway, but i don’t know what could possibly be done with that.