Betsie Lawnbott

I’ve enjoyed using Betsie’s Twitter account to notify her fans when they can see her out mowing on webcam…. but this plant that uses twitter automatically is really cool.

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The house we bought 2 years ago had a nice lawn. Good sized with green, thick lush grass. The previous owner had a contract with ChemGreen or whoever… There’s still chemicals and stuff in the shed. But that’s not my thing. So I haven’t done anything except let Betsie chomp at it for the past two summers. And it’s not as green or lush as it used to be.

I think the biggest reason is that Betsie mows the grass so darn short! The max setting is just above 2″.

These days it seems like people are finally ready to think about moving to no-cut grasses or lawn replacement ground covers. I know I’m thinking about it for the back yard (maybe mint). For the front yard my only big plans are some type of vegetable/fruit garden… and they’re just plans. I want to have something for Bets to mow. Right now I’m leaning towards picking up some clover seed. Clover? Yep. Here’s some reasoning:

Ideal Qualities of a “Carpet” for Outdoor Living:

1. It stays a luscious green all summer, without being irrigated profusely (i.e., it’s drought-tolerant).
2. It is free of weeds, obviating the need to apply herbicides. Your carpet competes so well for growing space that the competition is choked out.
3. It doesn’t need to be fertilized.
4. It is also relatively pest-free, so that you don’t have to bother spraying pesticides on it.
5. It aerates the soil on its own, so that you don’t have to worry about counteracting soil compaction.
6. It is soft to walk on.
7. It attracts beneficial insects, including honeybees.
8. It rarely has to be mowed.
9. It doesn’t suffer the discoloration from dog urine known as “dog spots.”
10. And if, despite all these benefits, you should ever want to replace it with a different kind of green carpet, it helps you to do so by improving the soil on its watch. Its ability to aerate the soil and pump nitrogen into it means that succeeding generations of plants using that soil will be better off.
From here: http://landscaping.about.com/cs/lawns/a/clover_lawns_3.htm

The biggest disadvantage to clover lawns seems to be that people don’t want lots of bees for their kids to step on. That’s where Betsie comes in. She’ll cut those pesky bee-attracting flowers off before the bees even know they’re there. This isn’t really a plus for me personally, but I can live with it.

Honestly, I’m not sure how the clover will do – but it should be better than the weeds that I have creeping into the yard from all sides now. The grass that’s there doesn’t grow at all in the shade under the trees, and the grass that’s there doesn’t seem to do well at keeping weeds out when it’s cut really short. Hopefully the clover will do better.

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Lawnbott Live got linked to at Makezine last Friday night. Almost 500 visitors came to watch Betsie mow on Saturday. Now we are up to 1270 visitors for the past 30 days. Pretty cool. The biggest problem? The lawn is so short Betsie doesn’t want to go out to mow.

I’ve let her return to her automatic schedule. At 95% mowed Betsie will go home and schedule herself to return to mowing the next day (24 hours + waiting until the next scheduled window). I’m curious if it ever waits more than 24 hours to go back out? Some features of the lawnbott software are never noticed because us users aren’t patient enough to just let it do it’s thing (or it gets stuck and resets the automation). The rain sensor is an example. Apparently the lawnbott will unpause itself a certain time after quitting for Rain, but I’ve never seen that happen either, I always go out and unpause it.

I’ve been out of town, so presently we are at almost 48 hours of unassisted mowing. It’s fun to watch the cam from Denver! If you like it, submit it to Digg.

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I’ve got the yard cam live all the time now, but still working on the first person lawnbott cam (it will be up and down). Both are linked from here: http://live.betsielawnbott.com

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From: Don
To: Sara
Date: Mon, 19 May 2008 07:31:46 -0400

Betsie finished by the way! The lawn looks great!

………….

Yeah! The weeds were knee high on Friday night when I got home and found the package from KA.

I set Betsie to charging. When she was ready (or maybe before since I am impatient) she came out, did a spiral, crossed the yard, and went home. Total time, less than 10 minutes!

I began to fear for the battery. However, she was cutting better than ever and not getting stuck in the tall weeds. So I decided not to worry yet.

I’m not sure if it was the new blade, the new software, or maybe the fact that my grass isn’t too thick… but I have never seen a lawnbott do so well in such overgrown grass. I’m pretty the fact that the grass wasn’t too thick helped a lot.

I’m going to try over-seeding when I get home next week (I have a bag of seed that the previous owners of our house left, so might as well use it). Betsie keeps things a bit shorter than I’d like, and that lets the weeds come in more. Anyone have advice about dealing with that?

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Check the stickam.com box on the right side… if it’s black then Betsie is in her house charging. If it’s a photo then we’re offline. But maybe, if you time it right, you’ll see her out mowing!

If you are seeing this in your feed, come visit the site to see the cam.

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Betsie, Back in Action!

Originally uploaded by sajego.

I let her charge for about 20 minutes and then got impatient. That was when I realized the charger was on the wrong voltage setting. I switched it, waited 5 more minutes and then sent her out. She made this lovely spiral, crossed the yard to the driveway and must have been cruising because she slipped out of bounds and stopped. I turned her around but she said Low Battery so I sent her home.

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Betsie, Back in Action!

Originally uploaded by sajego.

Guess what FedEx finally left me! I was all ready to break down and ask the neighbor’s teenager to mow my lawn (he does my neighbors) since I’m out of town next week. But the charger is here and Betsie is working again!

In other news, the rose bush (they are Bright Pink) has a couple dozen blooms on it!

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As I wrote previously, I was planning to redo Betsie’s front yard wire. Strangely enough though, when I started her up for the first mow of the spring, the wire was connecting perfectly and I didn’t have to fiddle with anything at all. I was quite surprised.

After getting the grass short I planted some grass seed that the previous owners of the house had left in the shed. I just tossed it around by hand on the bare spots under the trees (it was a shade grass mix). It had been dated spring 07, but I figured I might as well try it since it was left behind. It has been growing well since then.

Of course the wire around the side yard was broken, and then something disconnected on the main loop too. I placed an order for wire. It hadn’t come by the next weekend so I looked up the tracking number.

“Delivered”

???

“Pasadena, Maryland”

Oh no. That was Betsie’s first home. 3 hours away and who knows who lives there now! I had changed all the addresses when I checked out, and my email confirmation from the company had only the right address on it. I contacted them and complained. I told them they could just refund my money. I ordered from McMaster Carr and had the wire the next day.

My next free evening I installed it. Wow, no wonder I had had so many problems with the wire. In less than 500 feet I had at least 8 different pieces. Now it was all one piece all the way around. I got to visit with my neighbors who came out of hibernation to chat for the first time since fall.

I connected the new wire to the stranded pig tails and went to check the connection. The light on the transmitter that is either solid green or blinking green wasn’t either. It wasn’t even lit.

Betsie wasn’t charged.

Something had gone wrong in the week and a half of waiting for the misdirected wire.

At first I suspected the transmitter, but after measuring the voltage across charger I realized that was the likely culprit, only 5 volts instead of 25.

I checked all the fuses, cleaned off some dirt, and it worked again!

For about 5 minutes.

Now the lights on the charger were out too.

This is why Bamabots was having new parts sent to me. What’s happen since then? Well, I got a new transmitter, but they didn’t send a new charger. I’m still waiting.

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It is strange having a blog that you know people read. My livejournal, which I’ve had since 1999, has never had many followers, so I just talk to myself and feel free to complain about things. It’s actually been “friends only” since I discovered a co-worker reading it a few years ago, I didn’t want to have to worry about what I might have said about my job being too public.

Betsie’s blog, this blog, started because I wanted to tell people about my cool new creature. I talked about her in so many emails and IMs that my friends got tired of hearing about “Betsie this, Betsie that” all the time. So I set up a livejournal account for Betsie and sent emails to that instead.

It was a surprise when people started commenting, and a huge surprise to be contacted by the lanwbott company (KA) because of this blog. Subject matter blogging was just starting to really catch fire at the time, so I guess we fit right in.

Now days I don’t write quite so much. CBS Sunday Morning never did do their story with my interview and Betsie. I know that that happens with TV, but they did act like it would definitely air last summer. My neighbors are still asking me about it.

They are also asking me why Betsie hasn’t been out much this spring. Is that the new polite way of point out how tall the grass is in your lawn? That’s another entry though.

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