Aurora, Colo. — Aurora Central High School has a new employee this school year.
The X4 ROVR autonomous floor scrubber is a new tool added to the school's custodial staff. The robot cleans and shines the floors, even while students are present, and requires little human interaction.
Cleaning the floors at any school is a big task. The X4 ROVR aims to make that job easier.
Principal Kurtis Quig said the robot is going a long way in keeping up with the daily wear and tear of the hallways.
"We have about 1,800 students [and] about 200 staff members. That's 2,000 people that come in this building. We've been short-staffed here and there, so it's just an amazing piece to help support us with that," said Quig.
X4 ROVR follows pre-programmed pathways to accurately clean each floor. It even stops to avoid objects and people. Once it's done cleaning its pathway, the robot sends a report to the custodial staff.
On its first day of work, X4 cleaned 55,000 square feet of floors.
The robot still needs to be charged, filled with water, and emptied, but Custodial Operations Coordinator Jay Fahey said hours are saved each day. His custodial staff can now focus on more important things.
"We just did come out of some viral times. We're currently going into our flu season. This allows our custodians more time in the classrooms to disinfect, clean various areas, and get a little more attention to detail," said Fahey.
Letting the X4 ROVR do its thing lets the staff at Aurora Central High do their thing — provide an inviting learning environment for students.
"To us, clean is healthy, which means that if it's healthy, hopefully our students will be in school and they'll learn," said Fahey.
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