Daniel Riley, a YouTuber, channeled his inner mad scientist by creating a laser-powered lawn mower – the definition of something you should not attempt to recreate at home.
Riley’s scary invention employs a 40-watt CNC cutting machine laser that is nearly 8,000 times more powerful than a laser pointer and a 3D-printed gimbal.
Let’s face it; no universe would consider this safe. Since robotic mowers aren’t designed to manage lawns with weeks of growth, they need a bit more supervision. Instead, they mow gardens more frequently, giving each pass a light trim. Homeowners must be constantly vigilant in keeping their yards clear of trash, equipment, etc. A robomower leaves an unclean, shredded mess if it occurs to run over a hose.
“It’s not going to cut your finger off or anything like that,” Riley warned in his video, “but a direct hit to your eyeball, even for just a nanosecond, would make you blind for the rest of your life.”
Worse, Riley’s device is extremely inefficient, felling grass and other weeds in a narrow beam over the duration of a week. The overall result is a cone-shaped region of singed organics ready for the green bin, rather than the kind of clean-cut lawn you’d expect from even the most basic lawnmower.
A remotely operated, laser-wielding contraption with tank treads wasn’t much better, either, covering a single foot of grass in two agonizing hours.
In other words, it’s exactly the kind of concept you’d anticipate from a YouTuber: not really to serve a useful purpose, but to make their fans happy — and we’re all for it.