Auto Algae Scraper

[sean357]

so my brother is a last semester mechanical engineering student. He is in a capstone engineering class and is tasked with designing something useful and automated. This is an early design video that was inspired by my magnetic algae scraper as well as the sometimes obscured nature of my front glass ( in my defense I travel a lot for work). Any thoughts? My thoughts are knocking off snails as well as the the footprint of something like this. The idea is it would run on a timer one a day or as programmed.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=FuacfsEzDZ8

[TheYellowSnow]

Cool for a grade but not resell.

[sean357]

Thanks yellow snow, why? Surely there are people like me out there who aren't the best at keeping their glass clean.

[slief]

so my brother is a last semester mechanical engineering student. He is in a capstone engineering class and is tasked with designing something useful and automated. This is an early design video that was inspired by my magnetic algae scraper as well as the sometimes obscured nature of my front glass ( in my defense I travel a lot for work). Any thoughts? My thoughts are knocking off snails as well as the the footprint of something like this. The idea is it would run on a timer one a day or as programmed.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=FuacfsEzDZ8

Very interesting concept. There is already an automated algae removal device on the market called RoboSnail. Not sure how popular this device is and it certainly has limitations based on glass thickness but it seems to work reasonably well based on the videos I have seen.

<iframe width="1280" height="720" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/hpDLxz-zJg0?rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

[laverda]

RoboSnail has one coming out for thicker acrylic some time in the future. Will handle at least 3/4" acrylic which is what I need.to bad it wont go around go around corners, as I plan to have 3 sides viewable on my tank.