Imperial alumnus Chris Cieslak had worked in the wind power industry for a decade when he had an idea. He had seen how hard it was to inspect and repair wind turbines, and thought that technology could help.

Repairing wind turbines is not easy. It takes over an hour for a team of qualified technicians to get kitted up and hoisted to the top. It’s an expensive task and a dangerous one too, often conducted in harsh weather conditions.

In 2015, Chris joined the ‘Hackers in Residence’ scheme at White City. The programme offers people access to our Advanced Hackspace in exchange for sharing expertise with local students. Using 3D printers, soldering irons, and laser cutters, Chris built a prototype for the BladeBUG – a robot that climbs the blades of a wind turbine to assess and repair them, without a maintenance crew. His invention halved the time it takes to inspect turbine blades.

The next step was building a team: that’s where White City’s community of innovators came in. Chris met his Chief Technology Officer, Aksat Shah, at our Hackspace. At the time, Aksat was working as a Hackspace Fellow and had experience with walking robots. The pair hit it off, Aksat became BladeBUG’s first employee.

BladeBUG now employs ten full time staff and has received over £1.35 million in funding from Innovate UK. “Without the support of Advanced Hackspace,” says Chris today, “I would not have been awarded our first Innovate UK grant”.