Fred Campbell is the world’s best bricklayer.

Campbell, a Tennessee mason, received the title by winning the 2015 SPEC MIX Bricklayer 500 World Championship earlier this year in Las Vegas. The winning number? Campbell and an assistant laid 743 bricks in one hour.

Fred Campbell, bricklayer

Image: Concrete Construction

But if “World’s Best Bricklayer” is a title Campbell wants to retain, he better watch out for a rookie challenger that plays by a different set of rules.

Meet “Hadrian,” a prototype bricklaying robot developed by Australian engineers that can set up to 1,000 bricks per hour, 24 hours per day. At that speed, the robot can erect a house every two days. No breaks, or workers’ compensation, required.

Hadrian is wired with high-tech gadgetry to maximize speed and precision:

  • 3D CAD depiction of the proposed structure
  • 92-foot telescopic boom that auto-corrects 1,000 times per second
Hadrian, Fastbrick Robotics

Image: Fastbrick Robotics

Hadrian will be tough to outpace when it hits constructions sites, likely next year. But its human creator, Fastbrick Robotics CEO Mike Pivac, says he hopes the bricklaying ‘bot will create, not threaten, human jobs.

“The machine will fill the void that exists due to shrinking numbers of available bricklayers, whose average age is now nearly 50 in Australia,” Pivac tells Gizmag. “[Hadrian] should attract young people back to bricklaying, as robotics is seen as an attractive technology.”

Read more about the fleets of tomorrow in our “Futuristic Fleet” series.

h/t: Gizmag