Shoveling snow is backbreaking work.
So, it’s no surprise that snow contractors are finding it increasingly difficult to hire labor willing to shovel sidewalks at a moment’s notice.
What if a robot could do the same work, faster and more reliably?
Staring out his window, wondering why a robot wasn’t clearing his driveway, Terry Olkin imagined the possibilities a snow clearing robot could create.
So, in 2016 he launched Left Hand Robotics in Longmont and began creating the SnowBot Pro.
The self-driving robotic tractor is armed with GPS antennas, cell network connection and sensors that allow it to autonomously clear snow. It has a 56-inch broom attachment on the front, a solid drop spreader for salt on the back and a 12-gallon tank that allows it to run for hours.
“It doesn’t get tired. It works 60 minutes out of every hour. It doesn’t show up drunk and it doesn’t get in fights,” Olkin said of the SnowBot. “At the end of the day, you’ll spend less money over time on a robot versus people.”
Olkin said the robot clears snow at 3.5 MPH and can do the work of 10 to 14 people with shovels. Most importantly, it will clear snow at all hours of the day and night, regardless of the temperature.
“It’s really hard to get people to show up at 1 A.M. in 20-degree weather when it’s snowing. I don’t know why, it sounds like a dream job,” Olkin, who grew up in South Florida, said with a laugh.
The robot is designed to run continuously, starting out on a predetermined path before a storm begins and clearing snow until the last flake has fallen.
“The idea is you run the robot more than you would ever run people. Get the robot out before the snow starts, so the snow never gets a chance to accumulate,” Olkin said.
The current target customers are snow contractors, municipalities and property managers, including use on college campuses. The broom is designed to pivot to clear a 48-inch sidewalk, making it effective for large-scale uses.
“The problem is, this is a public safety issue, snow is the ultimate scalability problem. It snows everywhere all at once, and everybody wants it gone all at once,” Olkin said.
The sensors and hydraulic design allow the robot to stop on a dime, Olkin said, and the brush won’t destroy things like an auger would.
Left Hand Robotics is preparing to send the first five test SnowBot’s out to customers in the coming weeks. The test subjects are spread across the country, to test the robot’s effectiveness in a variety of circumstances.
The starter kit SnowBot is currently priced at $35,995 and comes with the robot, broom, path collection tool and GPS space station. Left Hand will also be charging an annual subscription fee for its software.
Outside of snow, Left Hand is developing a grass mowing version of the SnowBot.
“Why have some guy sitting on a quarter million-dollar tractor going back and forth when you can have multiple robots out there running 24/7 at half the price?” Olkin said.
The 14-person company raised a $3.7 million seed round in July, and Olkin said they will go back out for a Series A in the spring of 2019.
While they’re pushing hard to finish the five test models, Olkin said Left Hand continues to look at ways to make the robots smarter. He said they’ll look at machine learning and computer vision upgrades in future iterations of the SnowBot.
