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A 28-year-old MIT graduate has created a leak-detecting robot that could eliminate some of the 2 trillion gallons of wasted drinking water annually

You Wu You Wu, an MIT graduate, has developed a robot to find leaks in water pipes.
The robot finds leaks by detecting suction forces, unlike other methods that rely on listening for leaks.
He founded the company WatchTower Robotics with his college friend earlier this year.
When You Wu was growing up in China, officials would shut off water to his community for half a day each week in the name of conservation.
The experience contributed to Wu’s interest in water scarcity, which he chose to study more in-depth after moving to the United States 10 years ago.
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology graduate, now 28, has developed a robot to find leaks in water pipes.
As the robot moves with the water through a pipe, its "hands" touch the pipe and feel the suction forces caused by leaks, Wu told Business Insider.
It took Wu five years to create a working prototype.
The current version, Lighthouse, was released in January, shortly after Wu was named to Forbes’ 2018 "30 Under 30" list for manufacturing and industry.
The American Society of Civil Engineers’ 2017 "Infrastructure Report Card" estimates that there are 240,000 water-main breaks in the United States each year, equivalent to wasting more than 2 trillion gallons of treated drinking water annually.

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