Hallways, Classrooms, and Bigger Ideas at New Prague

This one was a good one.

We got the chance to do our first real proof of concept in a school, and that alone made it exciting. We were there with Paul, the manager of building and grounds, and it gave us a chance to show what the CleanBoss C40 could do in a real school environment.

And it was a pretty perfect setup.

We got to test long hallways and a classroom, so right away it felt like a strong opportunity to show off two very real use cases. We started by mapping out a long hallway, and that part was super quick and super easy.

Then, classically, demo life happened.

We had a couple random moments where the robot wouldn’t find the charger. Nothing crazy, just one of those things that pops up and makes you stop for a second. So I remapped everything, moved the charger, and honestly it didn’t take very long at all. Then boom — all of a sudden it started working like normal.

That’s kind of how these demos go sometimes.

There’s always a new little proof of concept, a new lesson, or some random thing that makes you adjust on the fly. But once we got that dialed in, the C40 did exactly what it was supposed to do.

And one of the best parts of the whole thing was the janitorial lady being there.

Her eyes were lit up. She was smiling the whole time. She absolutely loved that the CleanBoss C40 was actually overlapping and getting every inch the way it should. She had a bunch of funny comments, and you could tell right away she got it. That was a cool moment, because when the people who actually deal with the day-to-day cleaning see it and get excited, that means a lot.

Paul was a really cool guy too.

We were talking about everything from baseball to school activities to what he was doing for the 4th of July. Just a genuinely good dude, and one of those people who makes a demo feel easy and enjoyable. And what I really liked was that he wasn’t just watching the robot run — he was already thinking bigger. He brought us upstairs and started talking through how well this could work in the cafeteria, the locker area, and the common area too. That’s always a good sign, because it means the wheels are already turning and people are starting to picture where the robot could actually make a difference.

And on top of that, Paul was cool enough to even say he’d talk to the Wayzata grounds director, since they’re neighbors in New Prague. That kind of stuff means a lot. It shows he wasn’t just being nice about the demo — he actually saw something in it and was willing to make an introduction.

We got there on Monday, picked the robot back up on Thursday, and now we’ve got some good conversations rolling into this following week.

And honestly, I’m pretty excited about how it performed.

We had it scheduled every night at 1:00 AM, and we intentionally slowed it way down, turned the power up, and sent out a lot more water so it could really work into the tile and crevices. It did really well each night. For a first real proof of concept in a school, I couldn’t have asked for a much better demo.

Hallways? Check.
Classroom? Check.
Charger issue? Figured out.
Janitor smiling ear to ear? Also check.

Another demo. Another lesson. Another robot doing what it’s supposed to do.