Teenage engineer builds window cleaner drone for commercial buildings

14th of June 2018
Teenage engineer builds window cleaner drone for commercial buildings

A prototype of a window cleaning "drone" has won a Sydney teenager first prize in the world's largest international pre-college science competition.

Nineteen-year-old Oliver Nicholls has designed and built an autonomous robotic window cleaner that takes the form of a flying drone-like device.

His machine features eight tilting rotors and may be attached to a winch on the roof of a building. The device is then lowered down to a dirty window where the rotors fire up and move the bot away from the glass. A spray nozzle provides soapy water to wash the pane and the rotating pads wipe away the suds.

The pulley system then moves the robotic cleaner over the window to clean it before transporting the device to the next dirty pane.

The $2,300 device is claimed to be able to withstand 28 mph winds and could replace traditional methods that pose a risk to the operator, according to scientists.

Nicholls achieved first place at this year's Intel International Science and Engineering Fair with his creation and won the $75,000 Gordon E Moore Award. The competition featured nearly 1,800 young scientists from 81 countries, regions and territories.

The inspiration for Nicholls' device followed an accident at his school when a window cleaner fell from height and broke his leg. "I thought: That's definitely an issue, how can we improve that"? he said.

 

 

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