Robotic floor cleaning machine in gymnasium of school
photo supplied by Tennant Company


Brain Corp, an artificial intelligence (AI) company creating transformative core technology in robotics, announced that Denver Public Schools, one of the nation’s largest school districts, has selected BrainOS-powered robotics scrubbers, manufactured by Tennant Company, to enhance cleanliness and sanitation at some of its more than 200 schools.

Denver Public Schools made the decision to invest in a large fleet of self-driving floor cleaners to give its facility management employees increased bandwidth to work on other higher-value tasks, such as cleaning between classes and other in-depth cleaning. The machines will be deployed this summer at various high schools in the 90,000-student district.

“These new autonomous floor cleaners are a critical technology investment that will help us enhance cleanliness at 14 of our largest buildings, mainly our 10 comprehensive high schools. This is a huge benefit to our students, while maintaining future operating costs,” says Rich Archuletta, director of facility operations at Denver Public Schools. “At the same time, this program will help us close a staffing gap most all urban school districts face which is limited funding to meet constantly expanding facility needs.”

Denver Public Schools selected the T380AMR after evaluating several autonomous solutions, and ultimately made its decision based on the quality and serviceability of the Tennant cleaning equipment, as well as the safety, privacy and data features of the cloud-connected BrainOS autonomy software. District officials were also impressed with the ease of use of the machines, which leverage a proprietary “teach and repeat” methodology that makes it easy for non-technical employees to deploy and adjust cleaning routes on the fly.

“In the wake of the pandemic, nothing is more important than maintaining enhanced cleaning standards to keep students and staff healthy and safe,” says Alan Butcher, vice president of global client services at Brain Corp. “BrainOS-powered scrubbers enable facility leaders to quickly deploy powerful cleaning solutions that have the added benefit of providing detailed ‘proof or work’ metrics, which can be used to verify and optimize performance.”

Ken Boris, Tennant commercial market manager, agrees.

“A clean learning environment helps students and staff to succeed and grow," says Boris. "We are excited to see more school districts like Denver Public Schools adopt robotic scrubbers to create cleaner and safer environments, while also reducing operating costs, and expanding the bandwidth of their valuable employees.”