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points by goda90 4 days ago | 0 comments

I kind of want to try something like this for garden weeding. Put a small spinning blade instead of a grabber arm on it. Computer vision can identify any weeds popping up and it'll go over and cut them before they get too big/woody for the blades. The challenge would be dodging taller plants and probably the forces that the blade would put on it.

[–] comboy 4 days ago

I think the project difficulty grows at least 10x with all the dust, insects wind, pollen in the air and whatnot even assuming you hide it for bad weather and you have secured very stable mount points. It sure would be cool though.

[–] goda90 4 days ago

The more I think about, I wonder if a small tethered ground robot paired with an overwatch camera would be better. Cable management could still be in the air but since it's just power delivery, it doesn't need the tension.

[–] gf000 3 days ago

It would be interesting if you could just have all the motors hidden on the sides and have even the "cut" functionality driven by a cable getting pulled.

[–] razster 4 days ago

Some 12ft T-post, shelter for it to park, update weak points were dust & water can intrude. I think it's doable.

[–] fwipsy 4 days ago

Why not use grippers to pull them? Probably more effective because there's no root to grow back from, shouldn't require too much force when they're small/the soil is damp, and you don't have to figure out torsion/"friendly fire" from a spinning blade.

[–] voidmain0001 4 days ago

A small spinning blade? Sounds like the type 1 robots from Screamers https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0114367/

[–] everforward 4 days ago

I wonder if you could make it work vertically. It might ease the geometric challenges.

Naively, spraying targeted roundup from above or cutting a circle around the stem to kill roots kind of thing.

[–] hankbond 4 days ago

Roundup is gross anywhere even in small amounts. If water and energy can be provided similarly to stringman, a heating element to deliver a small payload of boiling water usually suffices.

[–] harikb 4 days ago

I am picturing a drone, one with the fan at the bottom :) OR one that can do a roadster maneuver at the right time.

Edit: Isn't there already one that Zap's weed with a laser?

[–] ada1981 4 days ago

weeds, dog poop, etc. could be useful in your yard.