“Cutter,” the boxy, three-wheeled, sensor-studded device they built in five months, finished third in a national robotics competition in June. The team members have a big-league sponsor in MTD Products Inc., the outdoor-equipment giant, and a mandate to get their technology to the marketplace, where mower sales rake in $15 billion annually.

The organizers of this year?EUR??,,????'?????<

Team Cutter started with the chassis, motor and blade from an MTD electric mower. They attached two mountain bike tires for extra traction and a third, smaller wheel so the mower could spin 360 degrees.

The students equipped Cutter with sensors to help it navigate. A global positioning system receiver judges the robot’s location by timing the arrival of signals beamed from orbiting satellites. A motion- and acceleration-sensing device called an inertial measurement unit further pins down the robot’s position.

Electronic counters track how often the wheels turn, to estimate speed and distance traveled. A laser range-finder sweeps the area ahead of the mower to check for obstacles. A micro-controller checks all the sensor readings and executes basic, quick-reflex actions, such as stopping or veering away from a hazard. A Mac Mini computer handles the higher-level decisions.

You won’t find Cutter on the shelves of Home Depot any time soon. The CWRU team estimates the robot’s equipment would cost $40,000—not the ideal price point for us weekend weed-whackers.

Kiser wonders, though, whether a self-controlled machine eventually would eliminate some human jobs in the landscaping and lawn-maintenance industry.

MTD’s Green speculates that a commercial landscaper with a fleet of robo-mowers capable of working unsupervised would be more efficient and gain business, not lose it.