I Made A Terrifying Robot Lawn Mower

hey going so recently i've been using a lot of vr  it's so nice having the option to just escape from   life for example i can stand inside my kitchen  but i'm actually outside in beautiful nature   it's great i can just chill out here for hours and  then if i get sick of that i just go and walk and   make my way outside into nature but i'm actually  in a beautiful kitchen making a pot of tea   it's great i never actually have to exist  anywhere or do anything unlike the rest   of life though which involves so much effort  always moving and doing things so i thought i   could combine virtual reality with the chores of  life so i never have to move a muscle ever again   alrighty i thought a good first chore to automate  would be lawnmowing as not a single person in   existence enjoys that except bailey actually  and he only likes that because he's got a scythe can i can i go to the side no now get your own  side right my side all right come on let me just   have a little go to the side wait wait oh it's  mine no let me have it oh wait come on we come   back here but if you don't have a scythe you're  stuck pushing around a crappy lawnmower which   is hard to start hard to fix and most importantly  hard to look good using but you already know how   i'm going to fix this problem as you've read the  title of this video mowing my step sisters loaded   vr 360 view wrong title turn my mower into a  robot which i can control through vr and the   first thing i need to do is get a lawnmower i can  take apart and unfortunately my family's saying   i'm not allowed to destroy theirs but they did  give me permission to destroy a lawnmower only   if it belongs to a ding dealer and luckily i know  just the spot what the heck what is happening here   it's terrifying so after grabbing the caterpillar  covered mower from the dealer's house i attempted   to start it and for some reason thought it  would just work but no matter how many angles and ways i tried to persuade  it i just could not turn it on so i started to take it apart and immediately  noticed the air filter was clogged with   grass and weird webbing probably from those  caterpillars i saw and luckily i remembered   that i had previously bought an air filter for  the lawnmower which powered my giant beyblade   so i went back to the dingg house and grabbed  the air filter and this should fit as it's the   same size but i just need to paint it the same  color to make sure the lawnmower accepts it and now it works kind of snapped off so after reattaching  the pull cord i reckon this lawnmower is   ready to be turned into a robot and  this would take me months by myself   so i decided to take it down to a  guy that can just do it all for me how you going hey how you going angus from maker's  muse has been making robots including battlebots   since before he was born but sadly after his  involvement in a horrible robot wars accident   and the war in iraq angus was no longer allowed  to make death bots and now mostly makes stuff   with 3d printers on youtube so motorizing  a lawnmower should be right up his arse   ally up his alley so the first thing  we did was take the lawnmower apart   and had a good look at it and then also had a  good look at robotic lawn mowers that already   existed on the internet and stole from them  let's just let's steal this one yep let's   and we reckon the best way to motorize the lawn  mower is to combine it with an old person's   mobility scooter and that should actually be  pretty easy since old people can't move very fast go go go go go go go go go go now that we had the scooter we have to  figure out some way to take it apart   which was strangely much easier than we expected  well i'm somehow hoping that this just kind of   splits in half and we'll just be able to just  take the back and just attach it to the lawn mower oh my god does it actually get folds ace around that's so easy then we just had to take  everything off to get to the motors do you   reckon this is on the front i was looking at  it and my mind went to like a diving platform   if this is sitting in someone your mate's  scrapyard or whatever that means someone   probably had this and then they died and  then no longer needed it or it broke but   i mean it was still working so they probably  died yeah they probably did and after finally   ripping off the plastic cover we exposed the big  sexy strong motors that we were after there we go   yeah you're gonna got stuff in them still  or not no they're empty no they're they've   been first he's not going to touch them just  hundreds of spiders crawling wrong and these   motors have inbuilt brakes that slow the scooter  down but unlike old people who love stopping a   lot we don't need them so we took them off don't  need that see you later then once we ripped the   motors out of the scooter we roughly stuck  all the electronic things together and then   angus explained how all of this is going to work  so what is what's this guy what does he do so this   is your esc or electronic speed controller  and what this does it interfaces with your   remote control receiver your battery so what it  does it takes in the signals from the receiver   yep and the battery will send  current through the speakers okay oh yep okay cool i'll take the  control current from the battery   and after a quick test to confirm  what he said and it doesn't matter   which way you put it because it  just goes in reverse exactly nice am i able to try if i try to stop it isn't bad  okay you won't get it oh yeah nope it all seems   to work so now it was time to figure out how we  are actually going to combine the mobility scooter   and the lawn mower we should um try to get these  wheels as close as possible to these wheels   and we decided to build a pretty simple frame  which would rely entirely on my crappy welding   skills also welding to a thing full of natural  doesn't sound like that's more fun i recommend   you do that i want to do it so angus cut a piece  of square tube just a bit wider than the mower   and then we marked where the new wheels and motor  would sit on the tube it's a very quiet drill for   a smoother knife it's geared down really low is  that what you want for metal usually you want a   low speed yeah really slow yeah okay that's what  that's what i've been doing wrong my whole life   you know otherwise it overheats that's the thing  it's like because it's a youtube video we only   need it to work once for camera and then we just  put i just pretend and say yes it works perfectly   it's pretty good we gave ourselves tons of tons  of clearance which is actually good that is good   before removing the dirt and grass from the mower  so we could weld the frame and wheels in place   there's so much grass on it what sort  of grass do you reckon is what kind yeah   maybe buffalo buffalo grass give it a taste   maybe kaiku let me try no no it's definitely  buffalo grass it's definitely buffalo it looks like a go-kart or something that's  sick tacky attack here and then and then we see it smells like mammy noodles  or something very strange   i don't know see i don't clustered enough to  take the clamps off i'll do one more around here   yeah i'm just in the middle yeah okay watch  it just the whole thing snap off and then i   also welded another short section of tube on  each side to give more support to the mower i think i welded the clamp to the t2 really oh  did i we also realized that the wheels currently   on the motor suck as we need wheels that can turn  around on the spot so we pulled the caster wheels   off the mobility scooter and then once they were  off we use the arm rest of the scooter as the   frame they line up we think they magically line  up with the existing holes that makes no sense   that's beautiful yeah let's do that and it means  less work chuck him here and cast her like that   and angle grind everything that's in the way  oh yeah because it it just touches the bottom it's almost like it wanted to be turned into a  remote control it was probably turn the wheel once   the wheels were in place angus roughly installed  the electronics which didn't work at first so he   stole some stuff from an old retired battlebot  to fix that stealing it from your battleboy   so how do you connect that to that so you  turn this on then turn that on and it should   so like a bluetooth speaker so we need to  figure out just quickly what is this sign   i think it's like you said we you mean you  mean you i need to figure out you're serious that's my god yes sick that is so exciting you're  like a magician this is amazing that's so cool so let's put  it on the ground and try it oh this is so exciting it looks too big to move it looks too  big to be motorized come on come on yes yeah something's dragging oh let me  tighten those bolts which ones on that side   no probably not oh that one doesn't have a bolt that is terrifying coming towards  you it almost looks a bit like a crab   and it kind of works it definitely moves which  is good enough for now so i went back to mine   to finish off the welds and reinforce it  while angus finished up the electronics   and at first i was considering taking these guards  off the side so we can actually see the blade   spinning and cutting and destroying stuff but i  decided that would actually be a really really bad   idea as i've recently dropped and  lost a bunch of knives in my grass and i also have a lot of glass windows in  my house and the two don't mix very well   and most of you probably don't know  this so i shouldn't be telling you now   but heaps of other people have already  put robot lawnmowers together on youtube   it actually seems to be the most common father  and son bonding project out there and i'm a bit   nervous to finally break the news to angus after  all these years of confusion and him not knowing   but i'm sure it'll be nice to provide  some closure but even though people have   already made robot lawn mowers before it won't  matter as ours is going to be very different   as we are going to control it with a headset  and camera speaking of which i picked up this   box of fpv goggles stuff which should be exactly  what i need to view and control the lawnmower and now you can't say i copied other  people there is no other lawnmower out   there that you can easily watch porn  and cut your lawn at the same time   and now with this camera right on the front  it should give me a kind of fpv lawnmower   perspective really simulating what it's  like to be a lawnmower feeling every bump   and tasting every blade of grass   allowing me to hopefully achieve the perfect mo  and i did think i would be able to just slap a   camera on the mower but i forgot that when it's  gonna be on it's gonna be vibrating like crazy   and after a quick test of putting the gopro on  the lawnmower this footage is very unwatchable it's literally worse than when your grandma  with parkinson's records a home video   oh it's interesting the video doesn't  show there's a special setting   i can't remember what it is now so i need to  come up with some way to reduce the vibrations   but i've come up with a cheap and  easy solution using this ladder   which will allow me to climb up to my attic to  grab this key which will come in handy as it will   allow me to open this door and grab this sponge  which will then help me and i reckon if i get   the sponge and just put the gopro on top it should  reduce the vibrations and after carefully putting   it all together it seems to work really well  this is me washing my dishes without the sponge now with the sponge you can see the sponge makes it much smoother  and makes the footage usable and the same sponge   technique also worked well with my grandma  look at that not a vibration in sight so after   attaching a sponge to the front of the lawn mower  everything should be nice and stable now okay so   now that i finished it up on my end i caught up  angus to see if he had finished the electronics   hey dude uh have you finished with the electronic  part yeah the electronics are all sorted i'll head   to your place now yeah nice all right i'll i'll  see you soon yes see you soon that is so cool it   it looks like a bomb now though it looks so it's  a bit it is a little bit sized with this thing   on it as well yeah does this do it yeah can i  turn it on yeah you put a light on it as well that is beautiful this is i thought we  would be able to use this in public though   ah not anymore not anymore no people are going to  think it's like some new age terrorist attack or   something like that and after attaching the  bomb to the back and little camera to the front   on the sponge we should be good to go let's go please drive it straight into your car i'll  try not to it's like minimum speed as well it's   pretty good it feels heavy really you can feel the  weight even via just wait let me move the chair   is there a delay at all or is it  you just don't care about my chairs   have you noticed my my beautiful lawn yeah it does  need a trim it does i haven't trimmed it because   i've been making the video not because i'm lazy  it's specifically for this so we got the lawnmower   into the backyard and set it all up and after  a quick practice it seems very easy to control   so easy to control i'm willing to bet even a  baby could do it sit down here yep there you go   wow and then i'm also gonna put this on you okay  you ready ready what do you see okay there you go and here is my first attempt with the mower turned  on what's the plan if something goes wrong uh   because it's gonna be so noisy i'm gonna be in  a completely different dimension just attack me   and at first i got off to a rough start as  i ripped the starter cord out once again but luckily it still managed to start first guy then once i sat down and put on the goggles  it actually felt very intuitive to control and it is a little jumpy but from my crappy  viewing angle it seemed to be cutting the   grass pretty well although i couldn't  actually see how the grass looks behind me and i'm not actually sure i've  ever seen a gopro used to film   in this way before if this doesn't  make it into the gopro best of 2021   craziest action cam compilations  i'm going to be very disappointed you're losing parts of the  mower it's it's falling apart is it still cutting it's  still cutting oh you got it don't run over the air filter and the mower doesn't really want to move  through long grass which is a problem   but i worked out a solution which was to do the  edges first and then slowly move in bit by bit   of going around the outside of one  thing on the concrete is a good idea should i go over here and the mower actually managed  to cut the grass really well   until some user error came into play  and i drove it straight into some   sticks which knocked the camera off  and then almost chopped the camera up i don't know and then i was unable to turn the  mower off so i had to smother it can you can you suffocate it  because the air filter fell off   come on yeah that's it that's it  stop stop kill it kill it stop stop stop oh my god stop go yes oh my i mean it works but it's not nice that we  can't turn it off so close to killing that   ah so it fell off and then the battery and the  disconnect so the first attempt was successful   but definitely had some things we could improve  like having an ability to turn off the mower   so angus and i quickly took it apart to put the  starter cord back on and to make it easier to stop   i hope this will work i hope i'll be able  to turn it off or just stick my thumb inside also if you're enjoying seeing people make dumb  robots go check out angus's youtube channel   makers muse he has plenty of dumb  robot things for you to look at   alright once we finished that we had a couple more  goes of the lawnmower h and ten minutes later we   managed to cut like one quarter of the total  grass in my yard which does sound pretty bad   time wise but if i compare the amount of effort  i just expended to cut that amount of lawn which   was essentially me just twitching my finger and a  month of building it was definitely less physical   effort compared to pushing a lawnmower around and  the goggles actually give you a really unique fun   perspective allowing you to see the grass  that you needed to mow while at the same   time making you kind of feel like a little  rat that was running around the garden and i   think it's an alright trim not the best not the  worst but definitely still better than bailey thank you so much for watching if you liked that   please subscribe and check  out some of my other stuff

Channel: I did a thing

Views: 1,412,214

Rating: 4.9695048 out of 5

Keywords: science, mythbusters, mark rober, i did a thing, michael reeves

Id: qCNFHu76H0U

Length: 22min 1sec (1321 seconds)

Published: Wed May 12 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/Gabougi]

That thumbnail is golden xD Nice video!