Filthy rear area of schoolbus

Pick the grossest, nastiest, filthiest job you have available …

Scooba floor cleaner in aft starboard area of schoolbus

And give it to a robot.

Scooba floor cleaner in aft port area of schoolbus

Scooba ran like a champ for me all weekend, with the bus parked on the street in front of my house.

Scooba floor cleaner in aft port area of schoolbus

I’d go out every hour or so to check on it, empty the tank and refill cleaning solution, and/or change the battery. The dirty water I poured out was absolutely inky black.

Aft port area of schoolbus as cleaned by Scooba

I’m sure I could continue to get black water through many more cleaning cycles, but Scooba has done a very nice job of making the back end of the floor not look awful, with relatively little effort on my part.

Bathroom area of partially converted schoolbus

I did pitch in by hand with bathroom cleaner on the toilet and the tile floor.

4 Responses to “Sc(h)oo(l)ba”

  1. John says:

    the speed of your progress on the bus is absolutely amazing, Keith! Wow!

    Just watch out for those mailboxes.

  2. Jonathan says:

    In one of the pictures, it looks like scooba was only cleaning to the metal strip that edged the rubber runner in the center of the bus and then turning around. Did you have to move it to the other side of the runner to get both sides clean?

  3. neufeld says:

    Jonathan, good question about the Scooba.

    With both Roomba and Scooba, variations in floor height and thresholds between rooms can present challenges, as the robots do fail to detect some situations that they’re unable to negotiate.

    Roomba sits higher and would easily drive right over the metal strips and vacuum the entire rear of the bus. Scooba is heavier and lower and has smaller diameter wheels, so over the weekend it would start to drive onto the runner and then “beach” itself.

    Because of the crown of the street, the bus was leaning at an angle while it was parked in front of my house. On the downhill side, which was cleaned first, the combination of the metal strip and the uphill angle were enough to keep Scooba confined to the side of the bus. On the uphill side, I had to use the “virtual wall” (infrared beacon) to keep Scooba from beaching itself; and even that was only partially successful and I had to go nudge it every now and then.

    I had actually hoped Scooba could clean the entire rear of the bus including the anti-slip walkway. Given that it couldn’t navigate the walkway even in a downhill direction, I don’t think that running it with the bus parked on a level surface would make enough of a difference to make that possible.

    Additionally, Scooba doesn’t get corners, and it takes a long time, and it was getting hung up on some bolt heads toward the back, and so forth. So I’m coming to the conclusion I just need to find a mop bucket with wringer and mop the bus by hand.

    I’m not averse to that and it’d be a great test of the water supply and blackwater containment systems — but I’ll need to fix a couple of leaks first (that I’ve mentioned to your dad but not yet blogged).

  4. Dave says:

    Is that electrical outlet near the toilet GFI protected? Might make for a shocking situation if it isn’t.


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