Once a house has begun to burn, there are approximately 20 minutes to extinguish the flames before the roof collapses. That means that every second is needed once the firefighters get to the scene to identify the flames. Unfortunately, once the firefighters reach the fire, it is difficult to find the fire, and time is wasted looking through the smoke for the flames. While most firefighting units now have a thermal camera, there is normally only one on site which can provide the information to them. So, a robot that could quickly search through a building, identify the source of the fire, transmit the information it observes back to the fire truck and be able to extinguish the flames would be able to assist firefighters in quickly and efficiently fighting fires.
Special Acknowledgements - The Villanova Fire-Bot Team would like to thank our Advisors: Dr. LeRoy Alaways and Dr. Frank Mercede.
We would also like to thank, The Engineering Alumni Society, Via Bicycles, Ralph Alfano, who printed our circuit boards, Chris and Zack from the machine shop and the Montgomery County Fire Academy. Without these people, our vision wouldn’t have been possible.