[Stewie123]

Well you know how they have robotic vacuums? I thought what about a robotic snow blower. It would be great for old people, or people that are disabled. All you have to do is clear you driveway off all the cars and put a little device, that the robotic vacuums have, at the end of your driveway, turn on the snow blower and go back inside and relax.

Reward: 1 free product

[Steve]

An unattended snowblower? Hmmm... Guess it would need some sort of security mechanism.

[sneezyalex]

I Don't think they have things like that but they do have robotic vacumes and security bots.

[Michael D. Grissom]

yep... for sure... could easily convert kids and small animals to off-color snowflakes but then... infra-red sensors are coming down in cost.

[sneezyalex]

If you saw a robot snow blower what would you do?
I would justpick it up and drive away.
Lots of people would do that.
You would lose the thing faster than you could buy them.

[Stewie123]

yea but know I'm think of just having it be a remote control, and if some one did pick it up you can rip up there car pretty bad and even attack them, but then I would get sue and wouldnt like that.

[Stewie123]

and it could also have a little chip with a key in it, (like a cd key for a computer game,) and you get a little slip of paper that you can have in a safe spot, and if it someone does steel it you can call the cops, tell them the key, and they punch it into there computers and find the exact location of your snowblower

[iLion]

We've had robotic lawn mowers for a while now, so why not snow blowers? I haven't heard of the lawn mowers being stolen, so probably not too many snow blowers either.

But, I think the mowers roam the lawn randomly. Random cutting of grass works as the clippings are simply left where they are cut... but the snow needs to be moved, and a random snow blowing would result in snow being moved from one place in the yard to another. Maybe a programmable pattern would work. Enter the squared coordinates of the yard or driveway and let it go in a back and forth pattern throwing the snow to one side, etc.

[Stewie123]

I was thinking on having 2 different shoots that go out each side and inside is a little metal (or steel) plate that with a flip of a switch from the controler you can move the plate back and forth to cover up one of the shoots so the snow cant go through it.

[mitrebox]

I've never used a snowblower but I do have to walk on snowy sidewalks often.
I assume there is a minimum amount of snow that is required for a snowblower and I'll guess that a snowblower is useless at removing the last inch of snow.

Therefore I think there is room for two distinct products:
Macro-blow- a standard sized snowblower for sidewalks, driveways 2inchs - 2feet deep

Micro-blow essentially a jumbo sized roomba that can breakup and push that final inch of hardback, squeegee up the black slush, and spread salt. Additionally, I would have some collector bin for the slush that could separate out the salt.

Since its a robot micro-blow can run whenever its practical from a battery level standpoint and not running into people. Running mirco-blow often should prevent the need for a heavier snowblower in all but the worst snowstorms.

Again having space to put the snow is the largest issue, placing the snow is the second. In Chicago the sidewalks downtown are double wide, giving ample room to pile the snow. However with accumulated snowfall, the micro-blow must either be strong enough to push the snow up onto the pile, blow the snow onto the pile, or lift the snow with a shovel onto the pile.

[ideamonster]

If you saw a robot snow blower what would you do?
I would justpick it up and drive away.
Lots of people would do that.
You would lose the thing faster than you could buy them.

BUT THATS JUST WRONG > WHAT ABOUT A TRACKING DEVICE!!!!

[lawrence_ottawa]

Hello,

I've been giving this a quite a bit of thought... anyone interested in pursuing something like this?

thanks

[berserk345]

Hey I know this post seems late, but I too have been pursuing a smaller version of your idea. I'd like to offer my knowledge of snowblowers, if you want it lol. There would be great benefits to building an RC snowblower (I know I would like one if In these northeastern winters.) But there are also many challenges.
Snowblowers need lots of power to work, as snow is very heavy and takes a lot of effort to be thrown any considerable distance. Therefore, the bigger your snow intake gets, the bigger the engine needs to be. For any significant snow removal your almost surely going to need a gas motor.
Second is the issue of traction. Snow, as you can imagine, is very difficult to travel on or in. Push snowblowers work so well partly because you are there to well, push them. If you wanted something to go on its own, you would need it to be very heavy, and have tank tracks or something.
There's also another issue. There are two types of snowblowers. A single stage snowblower is the simpler of the two, and it has only one auger which both collects snow AND propels it out the chute. These work great in light snow, but are horrible in heavy snow because they need to maintain high rpm and you need a lot of power to do that. Go to "worknsnow's" account on youtube if you want to see a single stage in action.
A dual stage is what almost every snowblower is today. It requires less power and can eat through heavy snow, but it also is more complicated. It has two moving parts. A large, low rpm auger gathers the snow, and forces it into a high rpm impellor which propels the snow out a chute. To make the different rpms possible the auger can be connected to the impellor by a worm gear, effectively reducing the rpm on the auger by a long shot, but still allowing the impellor to spin very quickly. Because the impellor is small, its not dealing with as much snow at once, allowing it to handle heavier snow with ease.
I hope you learned a little to work toward your goal, and please tell me how it goes if your going to pursue it. I hope I didnt bore you lol.

[Gaj]

I've been studying this for some time, and realized few thing that would make a robotic snow thrower not practical, mainly due to safety. The moving parts can suck in a pet, or a kid. Also if it picks up small stone or hard ice they can become dangerous projecttiles.

So I further researched on Shovel. Shoveling of Snow (mostly pushing, and lift at the end) is much more efficient than throwing. Thrwoing is a waste of energry espeically you throw them about 10 feet high in the air. During last winter I built the first robotic snowshovel, and tested it out. see http://www.i-shovel.com for pictures and videos. The one shown in the site (and video) is the first prototype, and I have developed a second, more sophisticated one and waiting for this winter to test it out. I agree that the shoveling is not practcal when the snow is beyond a certain height. So that's why the robot keeps shoveling the drive way every so often (as soon as it accumilates about .5 to 1 inch of snow, rather than waiting for storrm to over). Another side benifit of this is, your driveway is always ready to be used, as maximum acumiliation would be <1 inch at a given time.

I'll post the pictures of the new device in a day or two. Stay tuned for the updates.

[Steve]

Awesome - thanks for the update!