We chose this lawnmower because it was in the family of Ryobi products and it had enough space to work on the inside. We wanted to keep everything inside the same family of products so that we could swap batteries for any part of our project.

First you need to take off all the unnecessary parts. You are going to need a set of star screw drivers to do this. There are several screws all around the lawn mower holding the green plastic body on to the lower chassis. You will need a star screw driver to get these screws off. Once removed you can take the outer shell off but there is one cord that is attached form the top and bottom pieces. Luckily, there is a quick release clip that you can squeeze to release it. Once that is off, you will see the inside of that race-car-looking lawnmower is composed of nothing more than a motor power distributor and a clip to the battery connection on the top half.

There is a wire that runs up the handle so that you can instruct it you are going to mow and have both hands on the handle. You will unscrew all the plastic tabs holding that on and take apart the button mechanism on the handle. There are 6 star screws on the back. You only need to take out the bottom 4. Once open you can take the two switches out and feed the wire all the way back into the main chassis. This will later be bypassed and hooked up too our relay board so that the raspberryPi can control it.

Now you can remove the two bolts that hold the handle on. It should be looking like a sweet race car. Remove the back flap by popping off the clip on the end of the metal rod that acts as a hinge for the door. Slide that rod out and the door will fall off.