A Flying Robot May Clean Your House In The Future

When The Jetsons was created in 1962, people found it amusing that the Jetsons’ maid was a talking robot named Rosie. While we do have the Roomba, it doesn’t come close to Rosie. Now that it’s 2013, that future may not be far off, except this robot is believed to fly too.

A student at Columbia has drawn up a prototype for an automated cleaning system, which would allow flying robots to clean your home. While it might not look like Rosie from The Jetsons, we have to admit it’s still pretty cool.

The creation is called “The Mab,” which was thought up by Designer Adrian Perez Zapata. The Mab is a machine that contains hundred of little mini robots, that look a lot like little insects. These robots have cleaning solution to help get those hard to reach spots, or the spots you just don’t want to reach.

Only 23-years-old, Zapata is one of 20 semi-finalists in a competition called Electrolux Design Lab. For the theme, creators have to come up with something that “inspired urban living.” We have to give Zapata major kudos for coming up with an invention that truly defines urban living.

The categories that students were allowed to submit their creations under are social cooking, natural air, and effortless cleaning. With the amount of little robots that come out of The Mab, it definitely seems pretty effortless, unless you have to pick up the 100 robots after the fact.

Of his project, Zapata wrote:

“The thought behind Mab is to restore a sense of wonder in the everyday life, and to recapture the magic in simple processes, providing human shelters an autonomous purification.”

So how does The Mab work? First a user has to load water and a chemical solution into the system’s core. Cleaning liquid is then administered to mini bots, which have propellers that allow them to fly around the room. After that happens the robots shoot out and scan the home for surfaces that need a little tidying up.

Of the invention, Electrolux Design’s Thomas Johansson said The Mab is a “bold solution, which mimics the collection of honey bees.”

The best part about The Mab is that you can schedule it for cleaning, as well as set the cleaning to happen in certain areas of the house. Of course since we are a mobile generation, the product also will sync to mobile phones as well.

If Zapata wins, he will take home $6,685.