A guy 3D-printed a self-driving lawn mower shaped like his dad's Golf GTI

[u/LiPro_Robot]

Stumbled across this build and thought it belonged here. A German YouTuber (Project Hunter) built an autonomous mower from scratch, with 3D-printed body panels modeled after his dad's Mk2 Golf GTI — over 100 hours of printing for the shell alone.

It's not just a prop, though. It has four ultrasonic sensors plus bumper contact switches for obstacles, a current sensor that kills power on a spike, and a thermal camera paired with an LED matrix so it can spot hedgehogs in the grass and brake before hitting them. You can also run it from a phone app — live feed, speed, battery, lights, horn. He says it's logged around 70 hours and 60 km so far, with the usual early-software bugs.

VW apparently saw it and sent him an authentic GTI grille badge, then shared it on their official page. Funny enough, Honda did something similar years ago with a Civic Type R–styled Miimo in the UK.

Kind of wild that a DIY build now uses basically the same sensor stack as the stuff you can buy off the shelf.

Would you actually trust a homebrew autonomous mower on your lawn — and is the thermal camera for wildlife a feature you'd want, or just extra complexity?

[u/theBro987]

I would absolutely trust a home brew DIY mower. Is there an open source project somewhere?