Vacuum-Boy Says Window Cleaning Will Suck In The Future?

13 Year Old Spider Boy Scales Walls Using Recycled Vacuums: Hibiki Kono had a dream — he wanted to be like his hero, Spiderman. Most little kids would have their parents buy them a costume that they could wear to school. Not Kono — the 13 year-old set to work making his dream a reality. He’s used two 1,400-watt recycled vacuum cleaners and a little bit of elbow grease to make a machine that allows him to scale walls — just like his spindly hero! This DIY genius was shunned at first. When he announced his plans his teachers and parents were doubtful that he’d succeed. Kono’s design technology teacher, Angus Gent, told reporters, “I’m hugely proud of him. When he came to me with the idea at the beginning I had my doubts.” But to the surprise and delight of his community, the 13 year-old’s design was successful and Kono says he completely trusts the machine to hold him up on any wall.
However, his mom’s not so sure, she won’t let him climb the walls in his bedroom for fear that he, “may pull down the ceiling.” Kono thinks that the machine could be helpful for window washers, and in some of his demonstrations shows how one could easily use one hand to support themselves on his DIY machine and the other to clean the surface they’re climbing. Kono showed his nifty technology off to a school assembly, but unlike Spiderman, Spiderboy has limitations. His mom won’t let him climb higher than the vacuum cleaner power chords will let him. You see, he’s got to keep his machine plugged in to work.

Kono came up with the sucky machine as part of a technology class. He spent five months designing and making the gadget, which includes two giant suckerpads that are attached to the 1,400-watt vacuum cleaners via air hoses and two harnesses for the feet. Not surprisingly, Kono is a big fan of Spider-Man. "I used to dress up as Spider-Man when I was younger, and I love all the films. So it's great to be able to climb walls like him," he told The Sun. "I've climbed up the school wall but I'm not allowed too high. It's not scary and I completely trust the machine." Kono's teachers were initially skeptical, but now that he's proven it works, instructors like design technology teacher Angus Gent are sucking up to him. "We're thrilled with his original thought and all his hard work," Nick Robinson, Kono's headmaster at the King's College School, told the Daily Mail. "He shows a real flair for design and inventive thinking. He went up a wall for assembly and it was amazing."
Now that Kono has made the grade with classmates and teachers, he's hoping to suck up some money for the invention by marketing it to painters and window cleaners who don't want to carry around ladders everywhere. There could be two slight problems: Not only does Kono's mom put a strict height limit on how far he can climb, but the device's range is limited by how far the vacuum cleaner cords will stretch.