The safest lawn mower in the world - is a robot :-)

[silo_xtreme]

Hey All,

Sorry I've been away for such a long time, it's been busy.  I just want to know what you think of my latest invention, the new SmartMow.  http://kck.st/106l7hM  Maybe you'll decide to back it too.

Also, I hope it's still ok to tell everyone how much I love SoR. I linked to in my blog.

Mike

[jwatte]

Good for you, taking on brands like Husqvarna and Robomow and Lawnbott and all the rest! There are zillions of people with lawns, and if you can make a dent there, you have a real business!

I think that a PCB with 12 active cooling fans looks a little weird. Fans fail. 12 fans fail 12 times as fast (well, at least one of them will.)
I'm curious: What are you doing that can't be solved with a passive aluminum heat sink? And, if you need active cooling, why not a heat sink/pipe/fins with a single fan, like robust solutions from everywhere else do? This is an honest question; I may be totally missing something.

On presentation: Quoting the 3 laws of robotics is cute and all, but personally I just rolled my eyes when I saw that... Yes, having proximity sensors is great! But the "3 laws of robotics" are neither laws, nor robotics, IMO, and don't define "what makes a robot." If it helps you fund the kickstarter, then maybe it's all good anyway :-)

Also, have you considered talking up the environmental benefits? Electric drive means no exhaust, no gasoline/oil, no feeding unstable parts of the world, and no CO2/tailpipe emissions from your lawn care. Early adopters of products like this probably skew more aware of "green issues" (says me, without asking any marketing consultants...)

[Duane Degn]

I don't like your video much. The many cuts to your SmartMow logo with a musically interlude is really annoying. (I'd like the music much more if there were much less of it.)

Are you really set on your race car body? Robots are often round for a reason. No corners to get stuck on stuff. I hope the spoiler handle is more comfortable to use than it looks.

Maybe it's personal taste or the mood your video put me in, but I intensely dislike the race car body design. As far as I'm concerned the body design is a deal breaker. I'd be too embarrassed to have it running on my front lawn. I much prefer the round inconspicuous body. I also think the race car design beckons kids to come play with it. Do you really want your lawn mower to look like a toy car?

It's fine to say a portion of your revenue will go to charities to help kids with lawn mower injuries but unless you give figures it comes across (to me at least) as a sales gimmick. What determines when you're successful? How much of the revenue? Unless you're going to give a significant portion of your sales to charity it comes across as kind of slimy to mention charitable donations. Bill Gates doesn't even to that.

How are the blades spaced? How close is the cutting blade to the side of the mower (how close to a fence can it cut? Oh, right, the other features are reserved exclusively for backers. Does buying a t-shirt qualify as a backer? I'd rather not have to pay for a whole mower before finding out what I'm getting.

There are plenty of other questions, like what's the deal with the box in front of the race car? I'll hold off on asking other questions since I'm not sure what questions as a non-backer I'm allowed to ask.

Edit: Sorry about the rant. The found the statement:

What other features does it have? Sorry, that information is available exclusively to our backers.

very irritating. (BTW, the forum software converted the ASCII smiley to a gif version.)

Edit again: I watched the video "More on Navigation". Yes, that's much much better. Straight information without all the distracting music.

I do really like the idea of a robotic lawn mower but I still think making it look like a Power Wheels kid car is a big mistake. I think your top video would be much more appealing if it were more like the Navigation video.

BTW, When I was in sixth grade one of my classmates missed the last month of school recovering from a lawn mower accident. More power to you for making safer mowers.