iShovel: Early Stage Automated Robotic Snow Shovel

Ever wonder what life would be like if you didn’t have to shovel your driveway?  What If you didn’t have to pay someone to shovel your driveway?  In the not so distant future, the iShovel may be coming to a store near you.  This battery powered shoveling device will begin shoveling at the first detection of snow accumulation.  It’s built with two independent motors and an automatic snow sensor.  Seriously, how awesome would this robotic shovel be?

This iShovel is the “World’s Smartest Snow Shovel”!  Based on, what appears to be a similar platform at the iRobot’s Roomba, the iShovel records the artificial boundaries programmed into the robot.  In the harsh New England weather, it would have be great at the first sign of snow to have the iShovel.  As robotics become less expensive, it will hopefully become a household item.

Even though the iShovel is in first generation prototype, it has recently been featured on Bob Vila’s home show as well as Good Morning America.  The early stage prototype has gotten rave reviews and is hopeful to compete with the gas powered snow blowers within the next year.  According to the iShovel’s website, the product is significantly more efficient with regard to clearing the driveway.  Because it shovels in short spurts, it manages to shovel every few inches.  As a result, it uses less energy in relatively short cycles using battery power.

One of the real tests for this new product is how does it handle fast falling wet snow?  But theoretically, if it works as it says it does, snow should never pile about 3 inches.  This will be a future product to continue to watch to ease the maintence of living in an area with snowfall.

Although this product is in early stage development, it does suggest a great new concept that will continue to promote robotics in (or outside) the home.

By Jessica Chin, Product Engineering Manager at Flashpoint Development

The SMART Kitchen… A digital measuring cup.  A fridge that tells you what food you need and then orders it from the organic grocery store around the block.  A coffee maker powered by the sun.  This is your future home full of automation, intelligent and technology driven appliances that need no more than an electrical outlet (or a rechargeable battery).  As highly advanced, green, and sustainable technology scales down in size and lowers in price we will see it more and more in our daily lives.  The kitchen is a place where technology can not only help out, but make things safer as well. It can ensure that an elderly person gets the food they need, or keep food cleaner with odor and freshness sensors. It will be able to do all this for a fraction of the energy and water needed now. Imagine an entire kitchen that cleans itself, without even having to load the dishes…

I found this article on the new technologies website gizmodo.com.  Gizmodo.com is a website that blogs about the weirdest, wackiest, newest technologies of the current and future.  It was a short introduction to a “smart measuring cup” in which the measuring cup gave liquid amount digitally in US units or metric units and the type of liquid.

In 2007, a Denmark Innovation Lab redesigned a Siemen’s refrigerator to talk, even remotely over the internet. If you type a recipe into the fridge, it will inform you of the ingredients you need.  It will tell you what contents are used up and what you need to replace.  The fridge is the future but there’s more large appliances that could use a makeover.

What else could you redesign in the kitchen to make it “smart”?  What about creating a frying pan that, on initial set up registered what kind of stove you have, gas or electric and its average heat temperature.  From personal experience, I know gas stoves typically, are hotter than electric stoves, therefore foods cook faster.  Within this pan, one would be able to tell, type of meat, poultry or fish, size of meat (full size or chopped), and average thickness.  As a result, it would let you know when it’s cooked.  If the meat is a full size porter house steak, it could time when to flip it over.

The other improvement to a counter appliance would be the coffee maker.  Although coffee makers have come a long way, like this Solar Coffee Maker Concept (right) by Gun Ho Lee, I feel there still might be some areas of improvement.  For example, my parents leave for work at different times of the morning, like many Americans, my mother makes coffee for both her and my father but has to use two separate “coffee times”.  What about a coffee maker that allowed two set times to brew?  What about a coffee maker that auto fill your to go cup with the exact amount of cream and sugar every morning.  Although this may be on the brink of laziness, it seems to be where technology, gadgets and gizmos are headed – perhaps this next little bit of automation could be that next threshold.

August 5, 2009

By Jessica Chin