Last night I finally got a bank of Tim's surplus NIMH batteries hooked up to
the motors of my mowbot, and actually mowed some grass.  The mowbot has no
brains as of yet, just motors and batteries, so I had to pick it up and turn
it around at the ends of the yard, but it was still a satisfying achievment.
"May 7, 2001" I sez to myself  "The first day I mowed my lawn from an easy
chair."

Ironically, my neighbor across the street was mowing his yard the way the
old-timers did, with a noisy, cantankerous, hard-to-start , smelly and
polluting internal combustion engine.  I felt kind of guilty sitting in my
lawn chair, sipping lemonade and reading a novel while quietly mowing my
grass, whilst he sweated away.

I've been mulling over different theft control schemes for the Mowbot.  I'm
worried about someone lifting it while I'm not looking.

The heart of my theft control scheme is going to be a 108 dB horn honking in
the would-be theif's face.  With a 10 amp-hour battery, and 300mA draw for
the horn, it'll honk about 33 hours before the battery quits.  Enough to try
the patience of most thieves, and alert any nosy nieghbors ( I have several)
. The PIC will not give up honking as long as it has power.  A bit set in
EEPROM could also remember that it was in alarm mode when the power quit
last time.  A nice keyswitch or a secret number typed in a keypad will
disable the alarm.

But how to sense the theif is stealing my 'bot? (without actually killing
him)   Hmmmmmm......  I sense one of those [OT]:cows discussions coming
up....


-- Lawrence Lile

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