These inventions are changing the way we communicate and navigate in the world.Three civil engineering students of K.L. University have come up with a design for a machine that can build brick-walls laying an entire layer at a time. They hope the machine will reduce the time required and the cost of brick wall building. B. Sai Doondhi, Ch. Vivek Chowdary, and A.K. Chaitanya have just completed their third year. They thought of designing a brick-wall building machine as a project for the ‘IBM-Microsoft Challenge' in their college. The design of the brick-wall building machine was selected and Rs.15,000 was granted for further research to improve it.
The team of three students have designed the machine that can be assembled within an hour and operated by a single person. They have checked the design with CAD and more advanced software.
They are all set to have it patented very soon. The brick-wall builder can construct a near perfect wall void of the usual human error. The walls built by humans are imperfect and full of flaws. These flaws make them weak. The single brick or Single Bond walls built by the machine would be much stronger and flawless. The primary components of the machine are brick-holders (that will be attached to the beam), rack and pinion and mortar spray.
As per the current norms a wall should be built only to the height of 1.5 m at a time. The height is increased only after the drying and curing of cement. Since the brick holders are attached to the beam the top part of the wall has to be built manually after their removal. This is one of the drawbacks of the machine.
The youngsters say that brick-wall building machine is very different from the 10 other, earlier brick-wall building machines that have been patented between 1931 and 2009. The lack of finances is another drawback to their project. Over Rs 1 lakh would be required for building it. “We hope construction companies will come forward to fund us,” they say.
