Fail

Actually a pretty cool hack.

This was in Popular Science or Popular Mechanics a million years ago. Maybe 30 years ago. Geeze I’m old.

Yeah i remember this being a pretty old hack on TV.

Wonder if one can get sued if a dog happens to walk into the yard and meets the machine… i would imagine smart animals would survive it without a scratch but i can see some annoying little yap thingy meeting it head on….

This is a lawsuit waiting to happen.

Wonder if he used math or Tlar to figure out the diameter or the center rope winder.

As others have mentioned, that “hack” probably occurred the day after the first self propelled mower hit the streets.

and your serious,

a mower on a rope.

OK, if he is using this it’s probably obvious that he doesn’t care about the grass…most likely he is like me and views it as a nuisance. I say burn it all and pour green tinted concrete…..

My next door neighbor has been doing this for years. I thought as a kid that he must’ve been a genius, but now I see that he probably got the idea from Popular Mechanics

Seeing as most properties are square it won’t get your entire yard, and that stake has to be well driven in otherwise the neighbor’s cat is going to get a haircut. But otherwise it’s a simple yet ingenious hack. Good work!

What will happen when the rope runs out?

A) Nothing, the mower will just sit there, perhaps spinning its wheels.

B) The mower will manage to rip the stake out of the ground and continue in a straight line until it hits an obstacle.

My bet is for A then B. I don’t think it’s likely at all that the mower runs out of gas.

I remember this from an old movie or TV show where a kid(?) was an inventor… but for the life of me, I can’t remember what it was.

I do remember thinking how cool it was and how much I wanted to try it, but alas, we didn’t have a self-propelled mower in those days!

@dooglehead – yes, the commercial you’re thinking of was by Discovery Channel, which related to their “I love the world” commercial. The actor was singing the song, while hammering a stake into the ground, tying a rope up to his mower, then kicked back in a lawn chair while the mower did circles in the yard.

I didn’t know about the Popular Mechanics reference (then again, I wasn’t around in 1948…)

Mike — you pullin’ a Krafty Caleb? ;P

Would be better if it had some kind of throttle throttle control to kill it when it got to the end of the rope. I suppose it moves at roughly the same speed and it would be very simple to attach a timer to turn it off after a couple of minutes so you could set it and come back later.

Or you could go the high tech route and get some sort of proximity sensor to shut it off at exactly the right time instead of ballparking it, but that doesn’t mesh as well with the ghettofabulous stake and rope nature of this hack.

The CIRCUMFERENCE of the spool should be less than the mower swath. And the rope wrap makes it change as the lawn gets mowed. Fun! Add a kill switch and watch for safe operation and wandering darwin candidates.

Just figure out the mower’s fuel consumption rate, then give it just enough gas to get to the center post, where it runs out of gas and dies. too easy.

Being able to remote control a lawnmower still appeals more to me, but a thrifty hack nonetheless.

I love the simplicity of this!
@ Kurt Neufield – the simplest solution to all of these problems is to just give the mower exactly the right amount of fuel, so that it runs out when it hits the center. :)

Hurrrrrr look at me, I’m posting hax.

Jeez I know you were trying to start a flame war as you said, but c’mon, get with the times.

http://books.google.com/books?id=NtkDAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA161&dq=lawnmower+spiral&lr=&as_pt=MAGAZINES&ei=RhLWS5_oAoWOzASOhKHaCQ&cd=2#v=onepage&q&f=true

The same issue also has a build your own band saw!

All the people wondering how to shut off the mower at the appropriate point- this is not a hack for leaving unattanded, this is a hack for watching from a lawn chair with a beer, basking in
a) sun
b) your own inventiveness

When the mower finishes, you get up and stop it.

Doesnt work on my triangular garden, I now have no bedding plants… :)

Awesome, but there is no arduino :(

This is how the robot uprising starts! LOL

Is it me, or is that mower really – really fast? I was going to say it was sped up video, but the pitch of the audio was about right.

hmmmmm.

if only i had a circular backyard this would be perfect!

looks like it wraps inwards so at the end its just going to get stuck around the stake, relax grab a lemonade and watch the mower do the work (and make sure it doesn’t run over anything)!

@adam, http://smithsrus.com/lazy-lawn-mowing/ about 25 seconds in, but i think he’d got a beer

I saw this very hack YEARS ago on TV. Some story about an old fellow that did all sorts of stuff like this. He had a plane (hell, he might have built that too — can’t remember) so he had a grass runway for it. He had a series of “sockets” down the center of the runway to hold his bar/spool setup. He had some sort of kill switch figured out to cut it off when it ran out of rope/cable. He’d fool around in his shop or whatever while the mower ran. When he heard it stop, he’d go out and move it to the next socket.

Absolutely hilarious. The ultimate lazy man’s hack.

It was also on There I fixed it

http://tinyurl.com/237b74u

(: award for new way to make crop circles

Bend the front wheels to approximate an ackerman angle http://home.howstuffworks.com/synchro-steer1.htm

Also you can accomidate safety and auto-shutoff by making a simple front bumper that kills the engine, possible by shorting the spark plug to the chassis/engine case (older engines sometimes had a metal strap poised above the spark plug for such a purpose).

Place a movable plywood wall where the mower should stop.

4. Profit (or beer I guess)

Bonus points for installing a round border to your yard to end trimming. Plant roses or flowers in it and pretend it is a planned garden. Add “peeing kid” or “topless unarmed lady” birdbath for the mower to start from, that way you don’t have to ever pull up the stake in the middle.

Why not just buy a goat and let him do his thing. That is a truly automated lawn mower.

The farmer on Sean the Sheep did this in “The Goat” using well…A Goat! I did it 25 years ago in my back yard had a string tied to the plug wire so when it wound up all the way it pulled the wire off.Cost me a shoe and a baseball also lost 3 months allowance replacing the neighbors window when the golf ball that I didn’t know about took flight

“There’s no kill switch or any kind of remote control for the lawn mower so we wonder what happens when the rope gets all wound up?”

You’re not seeing the big picture here, also featuring the porch and the proud owner crushing beer cans. By the time the mower hits the pole it’s about time to replenish the beer supply anyway.
He probably timed it too!

So that’s how crop circled are made!!

When the rope runs out, this happens: