Growing grass is a delicate process that requires diligent watering and a lack of people stomping across your lawn all day. Ryder from YouTube’s Ryder Calm Down channel had the former but struggled with the latter until he built an AI-powered sprinkler to scare the neighbours off his lawn.
Most homeowners don’t have to struggle with the locals traipsing across their front lawns but after the city dug up most of the paved footpath leaving nothing but a dirt trail in front of his home, Ryder’s attempts to regrow grass on the remains were endlessly thwarted by the locals who continued to walk where the footpath had once been. The obvious solution was to either prematurely become the old man yelling at people to get off his grass or to build an automated solution that was less grumpy, but arguably more evil. Ryder took the latter approach.
Using the skills he learned when building an AI-powered device that automatically compliments dogs walking by, Ryder paired a Wyze security camera running custom firmware so its video feed was completely accessible, with a Raspberry Pi, an electronic valve controlling the water flow in a hose, and the same YOLOv3 machine learning model that’s capable of detecting and recognising objects like dogs and people.
When the target is detected, which in this case is either humans or dogs in the general vicinity of Ryder’s front lawn, the electronic valve is automatically opened and the sprinkler comes to life, passive-aggressively shooing anyone off the grass — or at least anyone who doesn’t want to get wet. It’s not a perfect solution to the problem, but better than setting up unsightly fencing around the new patches of grass, installing ineffective signage, or spending all day sitting on the front porch in a rocking chair giving menacing looks to anyone walking past.