Meet Roofus: he’s simple, sophisticated, lightweight and easy-to-use.
He’s also not quite a human being, but the invention of one Mandurah designer who’s hoping to get it into construction sites around the country.
Sean Pepper, 25, a carpenter by trade, has been developing the Roofus layout square tool for a number of years.
Pepper’s passion for the project started when he started learning carpentry at Peel TAFE in 2008, where he discovered a love for designing, crafting and building.
Particularly, calculus and trigonometry – i.e the study of angles and lengths – stood out to him.
“When I started my apprenticeship, I was introduced to a lot of the language of angles and cuts, because that’s what a lot of it was based on, particularly plumb cuts and seat cuts,” he said.
In Layman’s terms, the plumb and seat cuts are where your roofing rafters, for example, meet: the joint where rafters intersect.
Pepper noticed early into his apprenticeship a lack of modern, concise ways of making this measurement.
“Right now, there are about six or seven commonly used tools to get those measurements,” he said.
“They’re all necessary because these measurements have to perfectly match up, and the structure of the roof depends on it.
“The problem is these tools are very old and outdated. What the Roofus does is replace all of that with just the one tool, which allows you to make all your measurements in one go.”
Pepper has not been slack in his research, either: since 2009, he has spent tireless hours noting carpentry measurements and producing numerous prototypes.
“At first, I started playing around with modifying my builder’s protractor to make some markings easier by using a small magnetic adjustable arm to achieve seat cuts in my roof struts,” he said.
“At other times, I created my own mathematical equations to simplify common roof strut measurements to achieve a perfect fitting compound angled strut length from just one basic calculation.”
While all that might be a bit much for anyone who’s not a carpenter, suffice to say Pepper is ready to hit the market, and has already begun turning heads.
Roofus and Pepper have been nominated for a Young Australian Design Award, an annual competition which pits the country’s best products against each other.
Pepper is proud to be nominated, as well as happy his product is getting some attention.
“I was a bit shocked. There’s a lot of great inventions there, hopefully I’ll do alright,” he said.
“But I’m just happy for the news to be out there, really. We’re about ready to hit the market, and I really think Roofus can make a difference.”
Pepper is currently looking for crowdfunding support for his project. To donate, go to his Roofus layout tool Indiegogo campaign.
