Automatic Lawn Mower Viral Video

Published: 4/26/2010

Last week I posted a video to YouTube of a dumb experiment I did with my lawn mower:

There’s not much to it, really. I just set a couple of stakes in the middle of the yard and tethered the mower to them. I clamp the self-propel lever in the “on” position, and let the rope wrap around the center pivot, cutting a smaller circle on each lap.

What’s funny is that this video has gone somewhat viral. Between the original YouTube post, a few (authorized) reposts by the Cheezburger network, the video has been viewed well over a quarter million times in the past week. It’s also been posted on facebook profiles 2000+ times as well as making the rounds on Twitter, etc. It never ceases to amaze me what people find amusing! I’ve put WAY more effort into posted content that hasn’t had 1/1000th the public interest.

At any rate, thanks to the Cheezburger Network for originally posting the video! Check out some of the links below, and if you’re anything like me, you’ll get a kick out of the comments!

Original video:

• Self-propelled mower on autopilot (korey99)

Blog posts by Cheezburger Network:

• Automatic Lawn Mower on There, I Fixed It
• Genius, on EpicWinFTW

Reposted videos:

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z6dJhzMk6OM
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDv65QIkHVU
• http://www.viddler.com/explore/epicwinftw/videos/7/
• http://www.viddler.com/explore/thereifixedit/videos/2/

Other blog entries:

• Lawn Mower of the Future, on CollegeHumor
• The Lazy Cheapskate’s Automated Lawnmower, on Gizmodo

Update: this video eventually found its way onto CNN, Dr. Oz, Kari Byron’s after-school show (I think), and tons of websites.  It even was published in Popular Science’s Big Book of Hacks, which I got a copy of.