How We Can Maintain Green Spaces More Sustainably

Welcome to this episode of Hardware to Save a Planet. Joining us today is Jack Morrison, Co-Founder and CEO of Scythe Robotics, a green company on a mission to provide the most advanced and sustainable autonomous technology for maintaining off-road environments. The company’s autonomous all-electrical robots bring sustainability to the lawn mowing and landscaping industry by eliminating the emissions from gas-powered equipment that is commercially used. 

Join us as we discuss Jack’s background, Scythe’s mission to improve sustainability in landscaping, and their recent series B funding. Jack explains the environmental benefits of transitioning from gas-powered to electric mowers and the importance of urban green spaces. He highlights Scythe’s innovative mower, the M20.52, and its development based on customer feedback. 

Jack also discusses the potential of autonomous technology in various industries and expresses optimism about renewable energy’s future. He encourages individuals to contribute to climate change solutions, emphasizing collective efforts toward sustainability.

About Jack

Jack Morrison is the Co-founder and CEO of Scythe Robotics. A technical leader with a passion for connecting computers with the physical world, Jack has a track record of leading innovative, collaborative initiatives and organizations. Inspired to develop the future of long-term autonomous robotics, Jack believes that software engineering and novel research can go hand in hand to produce extraordinary advancements.

Jack brings deep experience in computer vision and robotic software to his role as CEO. Jack began his career as a software engineer at the MITRE Corporation, building computer vision systems for UAV imagery before a brief stint as a Robotics PhD at George Washington University, where he researched long-term, collaborative robotic autonomy and perception. Jack left academia to co-found Replica Labs, where he built monocular, dense 3D reconstruction systems from early smartphone video. Replica Labs was later acquired by Occipital.

A graduate of Bowdoin College with a B.A. in computer science, Jack currently lives with his wife on their small farm outside Boulder, CO.

Key highlights

• 09:28 – The importance of Scythe’s work for emissions reduction: Jack highlights the significant environmental and health impacts of gas-powered lawn equipment, which lacks modern emissions controls and emits substantial pollutants. He explains that transitioning to electric mowers could drastically reduce air pollution and ozone levels, especially in urban areas, which have struggled with poor air quality for decades. He also emphasizes the broader benefits of increasing green spaces in urban areas, noting that parks and greenery improve physical and mental health, reduce urban heat islands, and lower the demand for air conditioning. He underscores the importance of making green spaces more accessible and affordable, a goal that Scythe Robotics aims to achieve through its innovative, all-electric landscaping technology, thereby promoting sustainability and enhancing community well-being.

• 21:39 – Developing the concept and hardware at Scythe: Jack explains that early on, conversations with customers were crucial in developing the autonomous mower. Customers shared their problems, which guided the iterative development of six machine generations over six years. Initially, designs varied significantly, leading to the current 52-inch stand-on mower. This design suits landscapers by fitting into their workflow and doubling as a transport vehicle. Custom-built robotics and components, including mower decks and blades, were necessary for performance and efficiency. The team even designed their own blades to maximize battery life and minimize wasted energy. Their focus remains on saving landscapers time and optimizing every kilowatt hour for cutting grass efficiently.

• 23:45 – An under-the-hood look at the Scythe robots: Jack explains that the autonomous mower integrates GPS, accelerometer, gyroscope, magnetometer, wheel data, and ultrasonic sensors to create a 3D model for navigation and safety. The machine reacts to obstacles and plans its path accordingly. To operate, users manually drive the mower around a new property’s boundaries, saving the perimeter. This data is shared with the fleet. For subsequent mowing, the user places the mower in the designated zone, sets the desired stripe direction, and starts the autonomous mode. The mower then operates independently. The system includes a dataset of around 120,000 images from various states to enhance its functionality.
  

• 29:14 – The business model at Scythe: In the early days of robotics, each company often reinvented the wheel, much like the early web development era before tools like Django existed. The aim is to simplify robotics integration as web development has eventually. Scythe’s business model deviates from the traditional sale-and-repair approach. Instead, they offer a fixed-price monthly lease covering machine maintenance and unlimited manual mowing. Additionally, there’s a per-acre fee for autonomous mowing, incentivizing Scythe to create efficient, reliable machines. This dual model ensures alignment with customer interests and is approximately 40% cheaper than traditional mowing costs.