We’ve always felt that the hacker community is a unique one. Make reader [Gnomic] is reinforcing that feeling by running his own contest with unused equipment. [Gnomic] is offering a free Robot lawnmower to someone, as long as they send the completed project writeup to Make. The mower is a Robomower RL 850 and you have to pick it up in Richmond Va. To enter, you have to email [Gnomic] your proposal within the next 10 days. He will then choose what he feels would be the most interesting one to give the mower to. We’d love to see one of our readers get in on the action with this one. We would really love to see our logo on the final robot when it gets published to Make.
[Grayson Sigler] rolled out a new version of his robotic mower which he calls TOBY. The previous design added motors to a reel mower but he had trouble with traction. The new design is more of a utility robot platform that is used to tow the reel motor behind it. With better wheels, a much more stable base, and plenty of power this is a significant improvement.
His parts order came since we last checked in and he now has RC fully implemented. Check out the video after the break.
Challenged by hot days and steep turf [Grayson Sigler] modified his reel mower to use electric motors. The end product will be radio controlled but he lacked the necessary parts to make it wireless right now. Not to be deterred, he used a wired controller for prototyping and testing that should be easily replaced once the parts arrive. Sadly, the grade of his yard causes the small wheels to slip so he tried inserting screws into the tread for added traction. The small mower lacks the weight and footprint that the Lawnbot400 enjoys. That being said, solar charging is one of the future goals so this build, which he named RoMOW, wins out on the green scale. We’ve included the prototype video after the break that shows the blades spinning away.
[Kirov], a regular reader and one of our most notorious commenters, tipped us off about this lawn mowing hack. On one hand we’re wary that this is bait for a huge flame war, but on the other hand it’s a hack that brings a smile to our mischievous faces. By pounding a stake into the center of the yard and connecting a mower to it with a piece of rope, [Korey99] has achieve an automated lawn mower. He tied the self-propelled mower’s throttle bar down to make the machine run unattended. 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?
Driven by the relentless nagging encouragement of the Hackaday commenters, [Johndavid400] has improved the Lawnbot 400. No longer does it just sport a makeshift wooden shelf. he now has a wheel barrow attachment. It looks quite sturdy as long as that front hinge holds out. There is an actuator coming in the near future for dumping the contents as well. Also, we suspect that might be a shovel in this picture.
For those of us who are stuck in the middle of a cold and snowy winter, this project will seem like a stroke of genius. [Jimmy Bui] has put together this robotic pushing platform. While it is seen in the video (on the linked page) pushing a snow blower, it seems to be simply bolted on. This means it could push pretty much anything, such as a lawn mower. The platform itself looks like a common layout. He’s using the base of a motorized wheel chair, and some scavenged bits to protect the circuitry. He says that he built it after seeing elderly people having a hard time shoveling their driveways in his neighborhood. They don’t say if he loans it out to them now, but we suspect that he does.
[Johndavid400] built this incredible looking R/C lawnmower. After spending some time repairing broken R/C cars, he wanted to move on to something a little more useful and powerful. He decided to build a mower. He’s using a transceiver set from ebay, with an Arduino interpreting the signal and outputting to his custom motor board. In the video after the break, you can see that the mower looks responsive and quick. He does note, however, that he had some glitches early in the process that left him with a runaway mower. We covered a very similar mower ages ago that used a wheelchair as the base.
If there’s one thing we’ve got a LOT of here in America, it’s corn. In the past few years Corn Mazes have become a wildly popular fall activity for all ages. We’ve enjoyed many ourselves and part of what we like about them is that they’re a hack. Whether made by the farmer down the road or a professional company most now use GPS to ensure a fun, challenging, and cool looking corn maze.
