An Australian inventor has created the world’s first robotic bricklayer.
‘Hadrian’, the brainchild of Perth-based aeronautic engineer, Mark Pivac, is able to build the brick shell of a house within just two days.
In an interview with PerthNow, Pivac said that the idea for the fully-automated machine came to him during Perth’s bricklayer shortage of 2005.
“People have been laying bricks for about 6,000 years, and ever since the industrial revolution, they have tried to automate the bricklaying process,” he told the newspaper. “We’re at a technogical nexus where a few different technologies have got to the level where it’s now possible to do it, and that’s what we’ve done.”
Named after the Romans’ famous wall, Hadrian has the capacity to lay 1,000 bricks per hour, 24/7. This means that just one of these robots could potentially erect 150 homes within the space of a year.
Nevertheless, Pivac pointed out that Hadrian was developed in response to a shortage of brickies, and was not intended as a replacement for human construction workers.
“We have absolutely nothing against bricklayers,” he told PerthNow. “The problem is the average age of bricklayers is going up, and it’s difficult to attract new young people to the trade.”
Unfortunately, it could take a while before robotic bricklayers reach the Middle East. Hadrian is to be commercialised in Western Australia and then nationally, prior to his international roll-out.
