A Robot That Mows Your Lawn?

As a little boy I watched the Jetsons and several other shows that told me that by the time I grew up I would have a flying car and most everything I needed to do could be done for me by a robot. I truely believed this and in early 2002 I was rewarded as the first “home robot” was introduced… I thought who wouldn’t want a Roomba? I shortly realized that most people thought it was a gimmick, too expensive for a toy, or used any excuse they could think of to pass off this miracle. I on the other hand could not wait to get one. I encountered one in 2003 at a job I was working and could not believe that this little bot just toiled away cleaning a floor while I was away doing something else… amazing. In 2008 I happened across a Roomba for $3 that’s right Three bucks! I couldn’t believe when the wife told me not to purchase it… I just had to. Even if it was broke I wanted to dissect it.

Well that $3 has went a long way in our household my wife loves her little robot and uses it almost on a daily basis to keep our downstairs floors clean. It still holds about a 2 hour charge and I have not had to replace a single component on it… not even a filter.

So now to my title, my trusty craftsman lawn mower (a hand me down of 14yrs) is finally not worth fixing and I need to purchase another. I don’t want to just purchase a lawnmower though. I would like to do away with that chore all-together. I would love to purchase a robo-mower, but even after the years of faithful cleaning our little $3 roomba has given her I can’t convince her that buying a robot to mow our lawn would be a good decision. She is willing to buy me a zero turn John Deere instead However I am not satisfied, I must prove that just like the Jettsons we can have machines today that make our lives easier.

So today I have decided to at least investigate how much it would cost for me to replicate our Roomba and make a DIY robotic mowing solution. If your interested stay tuned and I will post updates along the way.

Update 1: Nov, 13^th Procured possible wheels and motor from broke RC toy of Daniels:

Update 2: Nov, 28^th A list of Current Robot Mowers available for purchase:
RoboMow
LawnBott
AutoMower

Just an update

I have tried to update my blog many times since my trip to Vegas. I have had several topics to discuss but never get the chance to write them down. Over the past couple of weeks I have been working almost non-stop for both work work and my side-work. I have had very little play time and in that time I decided to play with my son as soon there will be two of them to play with and I want to make sure he knows that he is very special to me. I truely believe he will be a great big brother and hope that he will always know I love him. Speaking of that my wife not only had one baby shower but two as my work hosted a sort of suprise shower for her. It was great! My department is a great one as they truely care about their co-workers. I can say that I love my job mainly because of the people I work with.

So I hope to update this site more frequently as I believe I will have a little more time soon.

Thank you for reading
David Bates