Building A Homebrew Robotic Lawnmower?

mmonkey writes "With the seemingly small amount of summer we get here in the UK, the last thing I want to be doing on a sunny day is mow the lawn. So I started thinking "surely a light-ish lawnmower could 'gain' a couple of motors, and suddenly be computer-controlled?". Then I started thinking about stuff like obstacle avoidance, optimum path planning, guidance system, how to get pretty-looking stripes, and I realised that it's actually a potentially complex (read: fun) thing to do. So, have any Slashdotters done this before? Did you modify an existing lawnmower or build a whole new one from scratch? What motors work best? For that matter, what type of mower works best? I know you can already get these, but that detracts from both my geek-drive and my wallet, both of which I'd prefer to keep as full as possible."

Re:Uhhhh

[Penguinshit]

Yeah, I imagine it could be an even deadlier version of Vroomba [sluggy.com].

How About....

[dirkdidit]

How about a goat? Maybe a sheep? Set one of those bad boys loose and you'll have yourself a short lawn. Obstacle avoidance and everything built right in.

Re:Simpler solution.

[Penguinshit]

uh oh... [esmas.com]

Speaking of obstance avoidance code

[raddan]

Make sure to code-in police avoidance for when your unattended lawnmower runs over your neighbor's feet while he sleeps in his lawn chair. On the bright side, you might end up with fewer cats hanging around the yard...

So you don't want to waste time missing ...

[bloxnet]

...the sunny days during your short summer. To correct this, you will spend time indoors hacking away and making a homebrew robotic lawnmower.

The best part will be you will have perfected it by the end of August.

Ummm.... yeah

[cr@ckwhore]

So, let me get this straight ... your solution to avoid an afternoon of mowing the lawn is to spend several months automating your lawn mower?? Sweet.

Go plastic!

[k4_pacific]

Have you considered artificial grass? It comes in a variety of colors and never needs mowing. Mine is "Misty River Green". With the optional circulated brine heating system, you can have a lush green lawn all year around, even when your neighbors' lawns are covered in snow. I recommend GrassCo brand Artificial Lawn Carpeting with its realistic texture and patented Flow-Thru (TM) drainage system. As a homeowner and lawn care enthusiast, I can assure you, GrassCo brand artificial turf is the only way to go.

Keep it Simple

[Anonymous Coward]

Materials: (1) Self Propelled Lawn Mower
(1) long rope
(1) stake

Step 1: Plant stake in yard
Step 2: Tie rope to stake
Step 3: Tie other end of rope to lawn mower
Step 4: Start mower.

Robot Lawnmower

[dangerz]

Try looking at something like this:

http://ltilib.sourceforge.net/doc/homepage/index .s html

I think the kill switch should be completely seperate from the entire system though. That way if other things fail, the kill switch can still be hit and no matter what goes on with the rest of the system it still kills the power.

Eventually, once it's all done, tweak it to see how fast you can make it work. Then make it so it can use a set of waypoints. After all that's done, enter it in the DARPA Grand Challenge and judging by last years results, you might actually have a chance!

Re:Already solved.

[Anonymous Coward]

The best machine for cutting the grass is available in your neighborhood for a reasonable hourly fee. There may even be one around the house you can make do the job for nothing.

What if you live in an all white neighborhood and don't have any slaves?

Buy some help

[Anonymous Coward]

Too bad you guys don't have Mexicans over there in the UK. Did you check Ebay to see what a good used Mexican is selling for? Even the used ones can mow lawns fairly well.

Re:How About....

[Anonymous Coward]

Problem being that the goose will also attack you. There are few animals more stupid and belligerent than geese, and they routinely bite the hand that feeds them (though not usually hard enough to do any damage - geese are stupid, belligerent and pretty ineffectual).

Simple solution with no electronics involved

[JiffyJeff]

My dad did this just to get a chuckle out of the neighbors:

1. Get out your self-propelled "push-style" mower.
2. Measure the cutting width
3. Place a post in the center of your yard that has a diameter equal to or less than the Cutting Width / pi.
4. Tie the inner wheel of the mower to a rope that is fixed on the post.
5. Start mower at edge of yard and as it winds itself around the post, it pulls itself inward toward the center.
6. When finished, trim the edges of the yard and you're done!

Easy cheesy, and it'll make your neighbors think you're bonkers!

Next:

[omarius]

AskSlashdot: Building a homebrew prosthetic foot?

Even simpler...

[EmbeddedJanitor]

Weedkiller + Green paint. Mix. Apply.

Re:another way

[aaron_ds]

Or perhaps your neighbor's robotic kids

Re:Uhhhh

[cratermoon]

You forgot:

0. A robot must never harm humanity.

1. (revised) A robot must never harm a human being unless that conflicts with the zeroth law.

Why?

[Trigulus]

I know its a neat sounding project but you are totally missing out on the satisfaction of having your yard groomed to perfection by illegal immigrant labor. And for the cost of a robotic mower they weed,edge, sweep,fertilize,etc... every week for more than a year!

Re:How About....

[bluesnowmonkey]

Or better yet, some sort of rental service, or Rent-A-Goat, if you will. Ooh ooh patent patent!

Re:Uhhhh

[Anonymous Coward]

So where does never harming an OCP officer come into that?

Re:How About....

[Anonymous Coward]

Plus sheep can be used for other things...

Re:Roomba + Mower

[MBCook]

He he he.

"The Black Moomba - As dangerous to grass as it is to small pets".

He he he.

Re:Uhhhh

[Penguinshit]

only after he's been fired.

Kinda brings a whole new meaning to the term "terminated"...

My dad had automated lawn mowing..

[NanoGator]

... until I moved out.

Don't forget

[MrYotsuya]

Don't forget to add some evil Battlebot settings!

Re:Speaking of obstance avoidance code

[weeboo0104]

you might end up with fewer cats hanging around the yard...

...or one cat all over the yard.

Just keep these things in mind

[Darth_brooks]

points to consider:

1. Make sure the robot does not take an interest in finding Sarah Conner.

2. Should you be enjoying a lazy day in the hammock while the mower does its job, and you hear some incidental music start up that sounds very 'AC/DC-ish', Get your sledgehammer or other non-complex machine based method of destruction ready.

3. Do not power the robot with alcohol. Take extra care not to power the robot with malt liquors such as 'Olde Fortran', lest your robot develope a penchant for petty theft.

4. klaatu barada nikto

5. Consider brushing up on Asimov's laws of robotics, just so's you get them right.

Re:How About....

[lerouxt]

Sounds like a job for a robotic poop collector.

Robotic Lawn mower may prove to be too difficult

[DrDebug]

> So, have any Slashdotters done this before? Did you modify an
> existing lawnmower or build a whole new one from scratch?

Naw, all that obstacle-avoidance and guidance is too much of a pain.

I was just thinking of something simple, like a robotic vacuum cleaner... :-)

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Go plastic!

[ed__]

bad idea: the plastic grass would probably be harder to cut than real grass.

Re:Good Idea, But No.

[Anonymous Coward]

yes, chopping off children's fingers is such a bore.

chop chop chop
all day long
chop chop chop
while I sing this song

Aside from Asimov's laws...

[unfortunateson]

Don't forget to make sure it's not programmed to go back in time and kill your mother. She's not named Sarah Connor, is she?

Re:Uhhhh

[diersing]

Or better yet, when a neighbor gets tired of the noise (even if not all that loud, a low constant noise can grate on the nerves) and kicks it in the pool or swipes it. Make sure to check eBay for a listing of a homemade mowing robot (manual, not included)

last thing i want to do is mow the lawn

[jdkane]

With the seemingly small amount of summer we get here in the UK, the last thing I want to be doing on a sunny day is mow the lawn.
...
Then I started thinking about stuff like obstacle avoidance, optimum path planning, guidance system, how to get pretty-looking stripes, and I realised that it's actually a potentially complex (read: fun) thing to do. By the time you get that thing built you'll need a bush hog to cut down the long grass.

So the first thing you want to do on a sunny day during your short summer is build a complex lawn mower? It sounds to me like a priority thing rather than a summer thing. I should insert a comment about "true geek" here, but this reference should suffice.

Ummm, sounds like a sheep to me

[rben]

Hmmm, sheep runs on the grass it eats, nibbles all day and is not particularly noisy. Better still, unless it is a Ram, it's unlikely to chase the neighbors. :)

Re:Ummm, sounds like a sheep to me

[WhiteDeath]

just needs a little tweak in the obstacle avoidance circuit :-)

Here's My Suggestion

[telstar]

Here's [it.uu.se] what I'd recommend. It'll cost you about $10 per mow, but it's worlds easier than building your robomower.

Re:Ummm, sounds like a sheep to me

[k.ellsworth]

and the sheep's poo make fertilizer for the lawn, so it's a perfect system, sheep trims grass, sheeps digests grass, sheeps return fertilizer to the grass, grass growns better.... and so on

Re:Uhhhh

[tonyr60]

" one of the things I always wondered about is why couldn't this be done over RF"

Well it could be done WITH RF. A wide angle microwave beam 1cm high and about 3 cm above the ground would do it. Oh and about 200 Kwatts.

Or overboost one of those circulating surveyors lasers, again about 3 cm over the ground. That would need less power, 200 watts should keep the grass down.

Electric sheep - heeerrreee flossie

[Suchetha]

In other words, an electric sheep

mmm electric sheep.. now where's my magnetic gloves and kneepads?

Suchetha

Re:Uhhhh

[DanielJosphXhan]

I say screw safety. If you want this thing to be a real geekmowbile, you need to go big and flashy. Real big, and reeeeal flashy.

1) Buy an old ride-on lawnmower, and patch the steering system into the onboard waterproof laptop. Running, of course, your favorite flavour of Linux.

2) Mount a satelite dish on top to communicate with "home base".

3) Install wireless broadcasting points underground for the unit to use in locating safe "pathways". Also, rig some sort of rudimentary vision system (preferably a VHS camcorder also patched into your laptop) to avoid stray objects. Make sure this vision system is mounted on an all-point swivel base, so you can simultaneously surviel your neighbors.

4) Program your Linux system with a speech synthesizer, and patch that into onboard speakers. Again, preferably some sort of stone-age boombox.

5) Label your craft "NCC-1701", and set it free to roam your lawn.

6) (optional) If you're concerned about the security of this craft, I suggest you install an "attack first and ask questions later" defense system commonly known as a "goose".

first...

[Anonymous Coward]

first you have to build a shrinking ray that your kids accidently get shrunk by......

Re:Uhhhh

[jellybear]

I thought you meant a kill switch as in: "Set your mowers to kill."

Re:Go plastic!

[G-funk]

Doesn't grow as fast tho.

How about grass-cutting ants? :)

[antdude]

See here [ibiblio.org]. [grin] ;)

Just buy a goat

[Zog The Undeniable]

And no, I'm not going to include a link in this reply, because /. readers tend not to trust URLs with "goat" in them ;-)

Re:SOLAR POWER

[Anonymous Coward]

You will need 802.11b to send this data back to your machine, also run tthhttpd on the machine, so you can address it AND access it via the net, I haven't seen a website running off a lawnmower, so that would be geeky.

Webcam would be nice. If however I r00t ur lawn mower box, and cut your geran1umz bi4tch then it is ur f4ult 4 n0t being l3et and patching your lawnmower.

I don't know if a solar panel about 2ftsquare could run an x86 with linux, and a HDD, and the necessary webcam, and 802.11b.

mmm.

You could setup webservices to allow people to subscribe to lawny, and he could drive aroun dyour whole neighbourhood, whoring itself out and 'mowing peoples lawns'

yeah.

alternatively concrete over the grass.

Related story

[AlecC]

Thirty years ago, the parent of a friend wanted to solve the same problem before the days of small computers. He had a nice house by the river, with a big square lawn reaching down to the waters edge. He hammered a stake into the centre of the lawn, tied a rope to the it, and tied the other end to the mower. Jam the mower throttle open, and the mower goes round in ever-decreasing circles as the rope winds round the stake. It works, for a couple of orbits, so he goes into the house to get the camera to get evidence of his cleverness. Unfortunately, the rope provides a neat rocking pressure on the stake guaranteed to maximise its chances of pulling out of the ground. When he comes back with the camera, there is a nice neat mowed line leading to the water's edge, and a pair of mower handles sticking out of the water.

Re:Uhhhh

[Anonymous Cowpat]

I think that t he scissors idea is fantastic!
Give the thing legs and a solar panel for power, 2 fingers in 1 hand & a pair of scissors in the other.
It can walk around the garden during the day, stretching each invdividual blade of grass out and *snip*.
With a decent sized garden, the grass could be long again at the start point by the time that it finishes - so no 'unused' time. win-win situation.

Re:Uhhhh

[FlopEJoe]

You forgot:

0. (revised) A robot must never leap about in a blood haze frenzy, killing all humans and chasing Will Smith unless directed by Alex Proyas with screenplay by Jeff Vintar.

Re:Uhhhh

[Gordonjcp]

The old ones without the roller *do* look a bit like Segways, don't they?

Re:Speaking of obstance avoidance code

[pointbeing]

On the bright side, you might end up with fewer cats hanging around the yard...

I'm somewhat of an expert at this, much to my wife's (and her cat's) chagrin...

How to chase cats with remotely piloted vehicles (RPV):

1. Position yourself so that you can observe the RPV but not in the same room. Make sure the cat isn't in the same room either.

2. Place the RPV in the center of the room.

3. Operate the RPV using short back-and-forth commands - only about a foot in each direction, please. The cat will enter the room to investigate the noise.

4. Once the cat starts moving in the direction of the RPV, stop the vehicle.

5. The cat will walk over to sniff the object that was making noise earlier. Once the cat has reached optimum distance from the RPV, apply full throttle and steer toward the cat. Big fun!

6. Obtain blankets and snacks for when the spousal unit makes you sleep on the couch.

Re:Uhhhh

[Lumpy]

I dont care how it is built. all home brew mowers need a speech synthesiser and a loudspeaker that constantly says....

"ERROR...ERROR... Must kill all humans!"

It will keep the kids and neighbors away from your yard when it's mowing.

Re:Ummm, sounds like a sheep to me

[asynchronous13]

it's unlikely to chase the neighbors

They just might chase the neighbors... I went hiking in an area that had a few sheep scattered about the hillside. One moment I looked up ahead of me to see a sheep charging directly at me! I had never experienced this before, so I faced the sheep head on and prepared myself to dive out of the way if necessary (I was thinking to myself, 'I'm about to be attacked by a sheep, noone is ever going to believe me....'). Very quickly, the other sheep saw this one, and started trotting my way. The first sheep slowed down just before impact, stopped at my feet, and commenced staring at me. That's when I noticed that every sheep in view was now headed my direction. I kept hiking and tried to ignore them. But its hard to ignore 40-60 sheep following you. I tried running, they ran. I tried standing still, they stood still. I couldn't shake them! I had fears that whoever owned the sheep would suddenly appear with a shotgun and accuse me of stealing his/her sheep. I only managed to escape when another hiker appeared following the trail in the opposite direction. When we passed each other, the sheep got confused and started following him.

Sheep are dumb.