Living in the Northeast, I can tell you from experience that shoveling snow is one of the most arduous tasks you will ever have to complete. Now, a company called I-Shovel is looking to automate this chore with a Jetson-style robot. Its patent-pending technology allows the robot to detect snow accumulation and determine the perimeter of the area to be shoveled. Once it determines the area has received enough snow, the bot goes to work. While only in the prototype stage, it looks promising from the video. The makers believe it will be affordable and hope to get a production model out later this year, hopefully just in time for next winter.
What better way to celebrate Earth Day today than by taking the Energy Star pledge. If every American household took part in the new pledge, it would save more than 110 billion kilowatt hours of electricity, over $18 billion in annual energy costs and prevent greenhouse gases equivalent to the emissions of more than 18 million cars. Read how to take the pledge and more at the Energy Star Change The World web page.
Lured in by their low price and sturdy material, another Florida building is being constructed using discarded shipping containers. In this case, it's a port security operations center in Jacksonville. According to the builders, the use of shipping containers is shaving hundreds of thousands of dollars off the construction costs of the $1.8 million dollar building.
As we showed in our Strong Affordable Storm-Ready Housing series two years ago, buildings made of shipping containers are perfect for withstanding hurricane force winds (ideal in places like hurricane-prone Florida). And when completed, it's difficult to tell the building is made of steel.
As anyone who reads this blog regularly knows, I love innovative design, particularly if it has a green spin. A Canadian design and manufacturing company called molo has a line of stools, benches and loungers called "soft," which utilizes flexible honeycomb structures made from "simple lightweight sheets of humble materials such as paper and non-woven textiles." These unique pieces, according to their web site, "have been designed to be used and re-used in a flexible and dynamic way, replacing the need for more costly and inflexible alternatives for partitioning and arranging space." Visit molo design, ltd. to view the soft collection. Contact info@molodesign.com for more information.
File this one under: Don't try this at home. New Zealanders, world-renowned for their crazy innovations like bungee jumping, have done it again. Check out one kiwi's creation: a hot tub which has a burner that heats water in about four hours—just enough time to cook a meal.
Last season, Bob Vila chronicled the construction of a home made from steel shipping containers. Now Scott Parks of Melaque, Mexico, is documenting construction of his neighbor's home using the same technology. This is a three-tier building with a storage area and workshop on the bottom level and living space above. Posting on a message board, Parks has pulled together a wealth of information about the project with photos showing steady progress over three pages of posts. Shipping containers are affordable building materials left abandoned in port areas across the U.S. and Mexico. When done right, homes constructed from steel shipping containers can be extremely storm resistant—high winds don't do much against welded steel. Let's hope Parks continues posting progress throughout the project—it's a fascinating view of shipping container construction in action.
