CMU School of Drama


Thursday, March 27, 2014

Grass Printer

DudeIWantThat.com: Designers Prof. Doh Han Young, Jeong Koo Hee, and Kim Min Hong recently won a Red Dot Award for their Grass Printer. As you might have guessed, the Grass Printer is a device that prints stuff in grass*. It literally mows graphics into your lawn based on images you sketch into its touchscreen.

10 comments:

Katie Pyne said...

What? This is really strange. I don't see there being much of a personal use for this. Maybe sports teams will pick this up in order to create designs on the field for important games. It's a cool concept, but not a really realistic one. The article seems basic and unprofessional. To be completely honest, I wouldn't buy this product. It seems like it would cost a lot of money because it's just starting out. I don't have the spare cash lying around to make designs on my lawn, and I don't think I'll ever have enough money to consider buying this product.

Unknown said...

I don't really see much use for this either. I mean, it is cool to draw stuff in your lawn, but if you have a machine do it for you then it is less cool. My father and I use to draw/write things in our lawn all the time, but we would do it on a riding lawn mower. I feel like this "Grass Printer" is just a silly invention for lazy people that don't want to do the work themselves. And why is it called a printer anyway? It doesn't print anything. It just badly mows your lawn.

Olivia LoVerde said...

What is this? Who thinks of these things? I picture this being on one of those late night infomercials with a guy yelling at me on how I can print on my grass. It seems like this is just not needed by anyone. People are not going to pay tons of money to have some weird design cut into their lawn. Overall this seems like a waste of time, money, and advertising. I would not purchase this and do not know anyone who would.

Akiva said...

The idea of a grass printer sounds a little stupid to me, but at the same time I really want one. I can't think of any reasons that it would be useful, but it sounds like a lot of fun. When I was young I read a book where a character had to mow a lawn and send a message secretly to someone up above the lawn. So they mowed out the words of the message in the grass. This robot reminds me of that story. I wish that the article had spend more time explaining what still needed to be done in order to bring the Grass Printer from an idea to a real product. I would also like to know how the device would be able to deal uneven levels of ground and or grass. If you were to mow a pattern in to the grass then the next time you went to make a pattern in the grass the grass would all be at different levels and thus make it hard for the robot to do it's job. It's like trying to draw on only one piece of paper but you can't erase what you drew last time.

Philip Rheinheimer said...

Dude!!! I most certainly don't want that. What a waste of money. Who would want to cut images into their lawn? The only use I could see for this is to have it automatically cut my whole lawn, but images?! You have got to be kidding me. The only real application I can see is for sports stadiums and being able to accurately recreate a large-scale logo. Otherwise, what a joke.

Keith Kelly said...

I LOVE IT! I think this is an amazing invention that has the potential to be huge in the sports industry and large entertainment gatherings. You could create some really unique graphics with this product and the possibilities are endless. Although this product would be unique and has a strong potential to do some amazing work, there are many difficulties that would need trouble shooting. Unless you live on astroturf or have a perfectly flat lawn, I can imagine this product working on a natural lawn where there are rocks, ditches, holes, slopes, and other stuff to get in the way. Also this thing would look really cool, but where would the grass go after its been cut? How long would it take to make a design? How would it handle rain and other conditions? How does it know its orientation in relation to the design? How much would this thing cost?

Hunter said...

Well this is absolutely ridiculous and I want one. I don't even have a lawn and I still want one. This is another invention that takes CNC technology and adapts it to a different medium and application. I can't really think of a practical application for this other than novelty images or text in your lawn but I suppose that is exactly what it is designed for. I also wonder how much it will cost. If it is more than around $250 i think you would lose the skymall crowd which is exactly what this is designed for.

Unknown said...

How can this technology be used in an entertainment application? What if this machine was changed from cutting grass to dropping a fly cutter? Would you be able to lay out 12 sheets of double layer 4x8 foam, and let the machine crawl over it, carving it in 3D? All the sheets would be match cut, ensuring exact alignment of the sheets.

I wonder how we can get one of these and play around with it?

Emily Bordelon said...

I'm sure this would be great for marketing products and for festivals and other spectacles, but I do not find much of a day to day use for this product. I like the idea, but it seems like it could easily be messed up. If you were to accidentally change the alignment, the whole image would be skewed. I see Keith's question about the flaws in a normal lawn, and I can't help but wonder the same thing. If the grass were to move at all during the cutting process, it would not make for a pretty picture.

Unknown said...

This is so interesting, but very weird! I see how this could be beneficial and fun. This seems like one of those ideas that someone pitches as a joke and then surprisingly becomes a real thing! What we can learn from this is that even if you think your idea is the stupidest thing ever you should still pitch it. Who know, it may get picked up!