Scrubby is a top robot. Scrubby scrubs whiteboards. Scrubby un-scrubs whiteboards. Scrubby sleeps to scrub again.
Living in 2025 is like gently being brushed by a feather duster made of your cyberpunk dystopian nightmares. Thankfully, every so often I'm graced with a less horrifying brush. One that says, maybe the future isn't so bad. One like Scrubby the delightful little whiteboard cleaning robot.
The future of robotics is frankly, terrifying. We already have robotic guard dogs, DIY robot lockpickers, and these little Chinese androids you can pick up for under $6,000 USD. Even these robots clumsily playing sports give me a chill. That's why when I see a little cutie like Scrubby, I feel it's my duty to share. Let's try to manifest a robotic future that's more BB8 than B1.
That's where Scrubby, from China-based robot builders HTX Studio comes in. This little cutie has been designed with big animated eyes and a limited purpose, which are two things I like to see in my rudimentary droids. It uses a series of motors in its boxy body, combined with a magnet arm to move itself around a whiteboard diligently doing its job.
Originally this was just to clean whiteboards and avoid baked in marker content left overnight, but once it was pointed out Scrubby could be more, its inventors got to work. Scrubby was upgraded to not only clean boards but also mark them, potentially becoming the harbinger of its own destruction, or just a programmable mural machine.
This continued, and more addons were made for Scrubby including a marker doc so multi-coloured murals could be possible. I think they go too far when they kit it out as the Duo Lingo owl, but I just don't need that stressy guy in my life.
When dressed normally, it's super cute to watch Scrubby work. He can be paired with another visual robot that's also designed for cuteness and capability to help spot marks to clean. When the work is done, Scrubby automatically comes to rest on the wireless charging spot at the bottom corner of the board. It's a bit slow, but it's so cute and when watching it is this joyous, how long it takes doesn't really matter.
I actually really like the idea of something similar for computer screens. Just a little bot who's programmed to come out once a night and give my screen a very calculated and careful wipedown. Bonus points if he's as cute as Scrubby.
You can get a look at how Scrubby came to be, as well as its whiteboard cleaning and marking prowess in the video above.