These days, electronic parts are dirt-cheap and there are video-cameras, cheap cpus and stuff that could be used to create an intelligent lawnmower that can mow the lawn on its own.
Laziness is the source of the world's greatest inventions and I don't want to mow the lawn by myself, so I need to design an automatic lawnmower.
What do I need to design such a system?
Wat you need is the intelligence to use Google to find the numerous times it's already been done.
In all seriousness, the first thing you need is a very healthy respect for the fact that you're proposing to design an autonomous, unattended system that has a large, high-speed cutting blade (and it's probably an attractive nuisance as well). The potential for damage and/or injury is BIG.
Roundup?
John
Sheep.
-- Cats, coffee, chocolate...vices to live by
I think goats are better, less methane
martin
Maybe not. Imagine a tiny-tiny cutter made with MEMS technology. The silicon chip can have the logic, and drive. A second chip will be a solar cell and perhaps a third one as a GPS.
The robot finds a blade of grass, measures it, and then saws it off at the right length and then goes on to the next. It also can have some chemical sensors to know that what it is cutting is the grass. If it finds a weed, it saws it off at the ground.
methane
Keep curry powder on hand for the ones that need to retire.
It should be possible to design a hair clipper that snips only grey hairs.
John
They'll also mow your flowerbeds, the hedge and roses (down to ground level), the neighbours gardens, the washing, and as I'm unreliably informed, the bodywork of Trabants. Goats are all too intelligent.
Hire dimbulb to eat it, and maybe he can save up his pennies for another video game.
No problem here... they're ALL gray ;-)
...Jim Thompson
Probably be easier to genetically engineer the grass to only grow to a certain height.
Yeah but then people would be walking around with big clumps of hair missing.
Growing up my cousins lived about 13 miles away on a few acres of land and they had a pet goat. That damned goat ate EVERYTHING.
Get a job and pay someone to mow your lawn. I make a lot more as an engineer than I would as a grounds keeper.
I would start with a good personal injury attorney. Maybe he can talk you out of this silly idea.
If I can train the dogs to pee in the rocks I'm going to put in artificial turf ;-)
...Jim Thompson
Paid up liability insurance.
This isn't a Roomba that will just scare the cat if it gets away.
Would not have been all that useful for me, i had grey (well salt and pepper) hair since i was 17. Nearly all white now.
JosephKK
Me too. I blamed my teachers for my gray hair. :(
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