FarmBot: open-source backyard robot for automated gardening
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 24 ก.ย. 2016
- In the front yard of Rory Aronson’s San Luis Obispo home (that he shares with 9 roommates), a robot is tending his garden- seeding, watering, weeding, and testing the soil- while he controls it from his phone. FarmBot is what he calls “humanity's open-source automated precision farming machine”. farmbot.io/
As a student at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo he was inspired by a guest lecture in his organic agriculture class, “when a traditional farmer came in talking about some of the tractor technology he’s using on his farm and I looked at that and said, ‘Wait a minute, I can do that better’, explains Aronson. “The first thing that I thought of when I thought of the idea was, ‘Oh this probably exists let me go look it up’ and I scoured the Internet. I was amazed actually, that there was not a CNC-type farming equipment already existing so I said, well, I guess it’s up to me.”
During the summer after graduation, Aronson wrote a white paper to outline his ideas and within days he had the attention of “software developers, open-source enthusiasts, ag specialists, mechanical engineers, and more”. After several years of iterations and a crowdfunding campaign that has raised over a million dollars, the FarmBot team (Rory and programmers based worldwide) will release the FarmBot Genesis in early 2017.
Using an Arduino and Raspberry Pi, FarmBots are “giant 3D printers, but instead of extruding plastic, its tools are seed injectors, watering nozzles, sensors, and more.” If you want to print your own, the specs are all free and open-source, but if you’d rather buy an all-inclusive kit, it will cost you $2900, a number Aronson says will come down with time. He sees it as a long-term investment. “Because it’s so based in software, all of the functions, it will get better over time so even if you bought a kit today the hardware won’t change, but the software will allow it to do more and more things over time”.
“My long-term vision for FarmBot is that it’s a home appliance,” explains Aronson. “Just like everyone has a refrigerator and a washing machine and a drier maybe you have a Farmbot too and in the backyard doing its thing and it’s like a utility that you use. You turn on the water on your faucet and water comes out, you go out into your backyard and there’s food that’s been grown for you.”
Original story: faircompanies.com/videos/open... - แนวปฏิบัติและการใช้ชีวิต
Now all I need is a harvesting tool and a conveyor belt to automatically transport the veggies into my kitchen where the Saladbot is waiting for its turn.
Correction. you need a mom.
Ok Doc Brown
@@kapilchhabria1727 Why not your DAD?
Don´t forget your Wall-e to compact your trash.
Thanks John for making me laugh
As a mechanical engineer myself, I can relate to this guy. Most things we make aren't actually practical but they are cool and often fun to make. Something like this, although to many is stupid, is a good test of integrating hardware and software to complete unique tasks. As a consumer, you may not want this robot, but you will want the engineer that has experience designing and innovating. The integration of automated software to complete often repetitive tasks can be used in other places that may have more benefit. But you need to start small and with a cool project!
why the hell wouldnt u want this? i forget to water my plants all the time
I love to tinker and one of my closest friends and roommate from college was a ME. We had so much fun building overly complicated highly impractical shit for everyday tasks.
That's exactly what I wanted to say. I'm also a mechanical engineer and a farmer too.. you explained it Nicely.
@@arklanbk Because its pretty much useless? We have sprinklers for automatic watering, we have various forms of weed suppressors so that they never grow in the first place, and seeding is so simple and fast that you could literally plant enough seeds to feed you for the rest of your life in the time it would take you to build this contraption from the kit.
there are simply other easy solutions to the problems
man this is great I am disabled and was thinking how i could make something out of an old mobility scooter so I can still do my allotment I never even dream about using my raspberry pi i was thinking remote control you have inspired a 55 year old man to try make something with a brain thank you
enjoyed the feedback , GREAT IDEAS go onto GREAT THINGS
in the short term; hire a teenager (or some other interested soul) for a reasonable price. Install subterranean/automatic watering if need be, and teach the next generation a forever skill. Just an idea. Much, much more reasonable and community-minded for the short term.
STFU YOUR OLD ASS CANT MAKE THIS
lol ...you would be surprised what I can make out of a few wires,Attiny 85, 555, ATmega328 ... stuff that could blow your young ass mind clear out your head. you forget its us old buggers that gave you life and the fancy ass toys you post crap om trolling today, anyways boy get down of your hate the old box after all its not use that are spreading covid nor will it stop at the old part two stops you been able to breed and turns your minds to cabbage retards that think giving up the old will save you but alas as we can see some already have it first signs are am untouchable am out doing selfies no virus can get me cos we are the new world ... but sadly new world order is nothing like that its a time when food will be money and water will be todays gold, all in just the time it takes you to get your first pubic air...NEXT FOR A REALITY AWAKENING
Sadly we are passed the time for learning to grow outdoors make a bottle garden in your windows and grow food among the weeds in your gardens make your lofts into a airponics room grow salad greens and other lower light needing fast growers pick and come again....see while some go around mocking others about the fitness or age others from the old world a lot of you don't remember have vast knowledge of how to make things ways to make food stocks last longer without much more than a pantry with a marble shelf and a few clay pots also how to make battery's out of household items, see us older folks in our 50s and above still have a teenager living inside us young people dont yet know the person you are now is the same person when older all them feeling you have now we still have when older just no bugger tells you not to upset you remember when you was told there was a father Christmas how real that feels lifes like that one day you get up and your mind is perfect but your body is dieing but your still that young person inside asking why am i in pain and know one tells you then you realize how much mum dad nana and everyone thats gone before you put up with then you realism hits you why we tell each other white lies to help you reach the end your born alone and you die alone please dont ever stop believing its all we have all of us take care and been older dont mean you dont need a lover a wife someone to love any less but when there gone your like the only wolf left Alpha male with on one to open the door for to lol with all you have is Christmas passed memory's to keep you sain
The bowing rails ( for anyone here interested). Just do not attach the rails on the bed itself. Have a separately mounted rail so it does not have any stress from the bed and soil load.
Fantastic idea. Presses all the right buttons in this day and age. Gets children interested in coding, gardening and getting outdoors. Fair play to you.
I love seeing young people thinking and inventing things like this. More power to them.
Really great stuff. I want to work for you.
Good on Rory for thinking outside the box also loved the bicycle sliding gate. THe world needs more people like him.
I've been thinking about exactly this idea for a few months now. I love that I just stumbled across this to find that it's become a reality. Kudos good sir. I applaud your designs and efficiences.
this is really cool. I do think it would be an improvement to make it so it doesn't just dump water on the leaves but actually waters the root zone of the soil, minimize mold/fungus on leaves etc
thought the same thing, and also as a gardener seeing the leaves getting watered on full sun phisically hurt me lol. I think that if he's planning on scaling it up he should talk to an agronomer more deeply about it, cool concept though!
@@Pedro-rl8ww Great part of this design is you could simply print a new tool head, maybe an angled spout and alter the firmware to make it do just that.
@@TenebrusI07 angled nozzle with a simple subtraction of the vector by a few inches
As a roboticist the cost is a burden to me so I figured I can do stuff that will sustain me so it's like spending money to make a garden so less groceries instead of on robots thus lowering the cost of my hobby
You should actually make it a real video game of it. And let those "FarmVille" people play it to grow your veggies :D
GlennnD Yeah ! And then sell the vegetables to them (saying its organic and shit)
natural genius
This is like drones but for life.
If you take a look at current software, it is almost that xD
@@aurelienchateaudon562 Robofarming as seen in this video looks so promising.
It doesn't pollute your farm with all kinds of garbage.
Add moar lazor for proper effect.
As a consumer;
If it has a lazer, I'd buy it.
Brotip: Sell the parts as a package close to original price.
I've been following this for some time. Thanks for doing the interview, Kirsten.
Thankfully, most plants are actually a lot more robust than is described here.
This also has high use in commercial and local farming! This is one of those projects that many people around the world thought about but never fallowed through with; myself included. This is a true inspiration! I literally have tears in my eyes. Please keep it opensource.
I love that you let the sounds of it in the video. You know it's a bit loud and you don't want to hide it. (not like nearly every company lol)
This is amazing. The main problem is that where I live now it would be stolen or vandalized the first night. Maybe after I retire and move.
If you jump the fence FarmBot has an M16 and It can face recognition too
Or have a sign saying like "Donating Crops to Local Food Bank, Don't be a jerk" (if it's for a community garden which is my usecase idk)
An IoT irrigation system that communicates its data in some standard way to farm bot could be a more efficient system for watering the plants. Love the idea of Farmbot!
Love it. Really cool to see a unique way of programming something as simple as a small raised bed. While I would not replace my garden with such a system, I love watching what people come up with.
I love this! As I grow older I can see that I could keep a garden growing even if I can't bend over to weed or can't spend the time standing over the garden to water. In Arizona this would be very useful in keeping adequate water on the plants too. I LOVE THIS!
BEND OVER AND LET YOUR HUSBAND SHUT YOU UP!
Surprised at some of the negativity in the comments, this is exactly the kind of thing that can reach suburbanites who are currently not growing anything!
Imagine a fully specked out, more enclosed consumer version, that can pick seeds from a bank, fertilize, plant, water (adjusting amounts for different plants), weed and maybe even harvest and till for next year, all with efficient use of water and power. Running and repair costs seems really low, and the initial investment will go down with expansion. With longer and wider tracks, it could be ideal for automated rooftop gardens.
I think a lot of people who are only growing grass in their backyard could be interested in this. Seriously! Don't underestimate peoples need for simplicity and ease of use! There is a reason convenience stores exists.
Any solution that puts more locally grown vegetables on the table without being wasteful is a good one.
How is paying $3100 to grow $10 worth of food a "solution"? Here's a real solution, get off your couch, put down the beer and GARDEN!
Cute, but you're completely ignoring the long-term. If the only thing you're optimizing for is cost of food, you wouldn't grow your own food anyway, because it's cheaper to buy from megafarms. But you're not. You're also taking into account your desire to locally source your food, as well as any number of other factors you get to control within your own garden that you can't control with food from the store.
In the case of the farmbot, you're getting a system that lets you have the significant benefits of a local garden without being physically tied to it on a daily basis. Additionally, that $3000 outlay is a one-time cost for hardware that will last you for years. We pay that much and more for tools that do less and require more manual effort to employ.
Is it a system currently ready for casual consumer use? Heck no. But they said that very clearly in the video. As with any new technology, the initial versions are much more expensive than the consumer-friendly versions that eventually hit the market.
Think about the amount of resources that need to be mobilized to deliver such systems to suburban consumers.
Will you have us start wars abroad to secure these resources and the energy that is required to process them to the purity required for manufacturing?
That makes literally no sense. We already have the resources available. We don't need to "start wars abroad" to somehow afford to construct these, any more than we need to start wars abroad to build cars, airplanes, or trains.
Looks like somebody's mommy just bought him his first libertarian starter kit
I've been waiting over 40 years for something like this. This "Robot" could free up a load of your time, absolutely brilliant.
This is really an amazing concept and will go places! Daily garden upkeep is too much for a lot of people who are not avid gardeners, so this meets a real need.
That was genuinely Amazing!
All the people bitching in the comments because they couldn't produce something this innovative in 10 lifetimes. I find this very inspiring.
Very cool! I really wanted to garden, like my dad, great grandpa and great uncle. But I work so much, there's barely any time for anything . My dad is still supplying us with tomatoes and pumpkins, thank goodness!
Super super impressed with this projecct. 3D printing, inspiration, a good purpose ... and lots of effort lead to this really neat solution for gardening automation.
This is pretty cool. To be the most efficient though, you can put in the seeds yourself and install an automatic water drip line
You could get a higher efficiency from automated seeding in a smaller tighter space then transplanting to the farming space or spaces.
WELL DONE!! I have used raised beds with square foot gardening myself. But no robotics. If I may make a useful suggestion to anyone contemplating this or any raised bed system, do not use 2 by lumber for the retaining walls - they will warp. Use landscaping ties instead. If you need a straight edge for your tracks, nail a 2x4 along the top of the frame
What an awesome demonstration of how the integration of hardware and software into our everyday lives can create endless possibilities
As soon as farm bot can id damaging bugs, and vacuum them away, it will be a BIG success.
Maybe even nuke them with a laser?
@@TheSimArchitect that's actually not a bad idea. A 5W laser diode pulse to the thorax should do it!
@@TheRainHarvester Napalm
I dont think thats difficult though. ID'ng the bugs wont be the issue, the speed of the motors to catch the bug is the bottleneck. But i think it could be done.
Luv ur videos, been watching for awhile. Keep em coming!
This is so inspiring. In a few years people will realize the fantastic implications this kind of technology will have for widespread small scale farming. It will be as common (or part of the same system) as the automatic lawn mower.
I love your videos! It is great to be able to see what other developers and creative minds are working on
I have to say that it's hard to beat aquaponics. I already grow a lot with aquaponics and it gives you the freedom to leave for a week or two at a time and come back with everything still green and growing. This would still be awesome for some crops that don't work well in aquaponics but don't know how practical it would be for more than a person or two if you tried to supply all your vegetables... unless maybe the larger system being able to grow in a larger bed could bring the price down considerably.
Yes you can use this with aquaponics, at around 3.5k to 4k with solar to feed one person with a family of 5 you are looking at around 20k for 5 systems, like i said above a larger system could bring the price down considerably. the cost of one system, around 4k, I can build a 20x30 aquaponic hoop house that can feed 10 people with a surplus for barter or sale in most areas of the world, at 20K I could build a aquaponics system that could employee people and be a viable source of income. Also if adding to an aquaponics system you could just put in a self watering earthen bed the size of the system for less than 300 dollars... Don't get wrong I think it's a cool idea but the cost of entry has to come down, or the system has to grow in size while keeping the costs down to make it economically feasible.
***** Sure it would just be hydroponics. So your plants would get their nutrients from your hydroponic solution instead of the fish.
Jeff Jones I think you should start aquaponics bizz and start hiring people if you could do it and the economics of a small aqua-bizz works. If it a working model spread in our country and all over the world that would be great. I think food and money or lack there of might be about to be used against the worlds people very soon.
The best way for this to b viable n my opinion is to retrofit greenhouses with a bot for water, soil testing, &, weed maintenance
And I thought I spent way too much money on my garden.
LOL SAME! Built a custom 24 inch tall 5x7 redwood raised bed during quarantine! It’s beautiful and I used organic miracle grow soil and compost, but dam that sizz all together cost me bout $425 after wood, supplies, soil, seeds, fertilizer etc! Good luck w ur garden!
Lol
After watching this vid I'm inspired to go to my father-in-law house and see them doing theirs tech. They are pure traditional farmer in remote place
I've read about farmbot somwhere before so I was really pleased to see this video. I think farmbot is really great!
It's very neat, but those damn stepper drivers...
yeah, annoying as hell...
Simple Upgrade Luckily
This man took farming simulator to a whole new level
Great that you're doing this.
In a world that cared about humanity, this would have been made a LONG time ago. It's pretty clear those in charge aren't into that. So thank you!
It is amazing the number of Luddites who have commented. I grew up with parents that were tied to their garden and would not leave their land or travel because of their garden and I promised myself to not let this happen. Your solution is one that enables a garden while being able to travel which won my approval. In the bigger picture what you have shown is just the first step in what will revolutionize automated crop production in my opinion. I liken this to the introduction of the first personal computers 37 years ago - I wonder what the face of agriculture will look like in a similar timeframe. Keep up the good work - you and your colleagues have a great opportunity here for commercializations.
Thanks for sharing. I especially enjoy the weed elimination system - great idea. Now get that laser going to zap those snails?
This is amazing work . Can't believe all the negative comments .
Awesome idea FarmBot! Really inspirational to see how Open Source Software (OSS) concepts are approaching Permaculture concepts. The mindsets are similar but the skill sets are still so far apart. It takes mavericks like Rory to bridge the gap. Gardeners can program and programmers can garden IMO... or at least help each other immensely.
This is great; very innovative. I am a garden fanatic but the big downside is you can't leave for more than a couple of days. I've found my own solution to this but not mechanized. This is just wonderful!
Keep it up dude, this is pretty awesome.😁
Way cool. (Glad I don’t live next door to him though... those motors, man...)
Can be fixed with "Silent Stepper Drivers"
I am in SLO. 3rd year ME at Poly. You are super inspiring! Thank you!
I love you so much Kirsten ! Thank you so much for making videos, they are so interesting :)
2:47 washes the seeds out of the hole. lmao.
Totally want to buy this and just do some CNC fabrication, lol
nice project, a few points that i have noticed
1. no need to include all into the bot., - you can do watering by a separate system, it is enough to measure the soil water content
2. at least 1-2 more dergee of freedom needed for the bot - do not be scaried and add the simplest robotic hand to the end
I love it. Seems quite amazing. I imagine this combined in a hydroponic system, basically doing all the work. Some large Canabis company got to hire this guy ASAP.
I enjoy taking care of my garden.
Luckily You still can.
if gardening is something you need you find a way to do it. Same as with having kids.
i love doing gardening my self too.. but, technology its ok for the future.. :D
So do i but lots of people don't or cant because of family and or work or other lives activity's. Also this would be amazing for disabled people say people with mental health issues or in wheelchairs. Truly amazing & so kind to make open for people to download plans so generous.
would u like a cookie?
Having worked with industrial robots for many years, programming & repairing, I can see where a lot of improvements could be made. Also, it's not something I would ever go off and leave unattended. I know first hand the kind of unexpected things that can happen. There's also always safety issues that have to be addressed. Nice toy though.
hater..
ah just jokin' ; P
...
Brilliant. Thinking of this for our school garden.
I love the weeding application. Hands down, no pun intended, the best option.
common people in the comments: no one wants to take you away your garden and your pleasure with caring for your plants the way you want it. just think about an aging population (more old people and less young poeple in compare to care fore there needs), if you then get more and more technological so the work needs to be done by the young people to provide things needed for the old people to live is less (and that means they will be able to do that work needed), that is just a optional and good thing. also, the less people need to work on things they dont like to do, the more time they will have for things they want to do (that can be cardening or whatever else)
Hey its not the fact of the automation that bothers me, but the way he overcomplicated it. It is just inefficient and expensive. Did you look at the prices? 1500-4000$ without installation. Thats not feasable for anyone.
Wonderful!
I'd love for someone to invent a robot that could cook and bake at a touch of a button.
DIY
live long enough and i'm sure you will see it. =)
Hahahahahaha I loved the comments above LOL
Done! watch?v=QDprrrEdomM
I had done something very similar, however it was much less easy tech back in 2010. I had a controller built from a custom serial port card on an older PC. I used angle iron on 2x6 for running rails bicycle chain in place of timing belts, and similar for each axis. This actually was in use until 2014. The pci card failed after a electrical storm. I have not yet redesigned this, but may next year. I found this looking into doing just that.
This is the first thing I've ever been impressed with.
I thought this is insensible, but when he gets to the weeding part at 8:00, that is pretty interesting.
I thought so too. With robots it's so much easier to go organic.
Well if you want to go organic that you can, reduced yields etc.
Rest of us won't and I can see a very good use in that regard, to massively increase yields.
mulch.
I kinda thought the same. It's going to take different heads to plant many different seeds. That system will not work for planting asparagus crowns, onion sets, potato seeds, carrots, etc, but you only have to do that once in a while. It seems planting the old fashioned way would be easier if you were growing a variety. But the weeding did look promising, and needs to be done very often. Hydroponics or even programmable soaker hose would water better and easier. I could see just planted seeds getting washed out right after planting in this video lol.
7:50 that's a robot programmed to kill
Wonder what they have in store to keep away deer and rabbits... a CWIS?
Doom is upon us ;)
This is fantastic. The thing that has kept me from gardening for many years is that I just hate weeding. While I watched the video, I hoped to hear that farmbot had a camera and was delighted to see the weed killing function. To reduce cost, I can think of a couple of ways. A polar version of this might be cheaper by replacing the two x extrusions with a rotary axis. The z-axis could be the arm climbing thr pole. Maybe the y-axis from a 2x4? Also, a tiny version for a balcony would be cool for city dwellers. Or a flower pot version for a conversation piece. There is so much nice thought in your project, really nice work! I think that having a garden is worth the investment for some people. When I did garden, I rarely watered it correctly because I work long hours, and I didn't really like getting up so early every morning in the dark, and watching the weather and... well I'm not a farmer. I had some ideas about software for pest control. Bugs, rabbits, deer could all be 'managed' with perimeter detection and a vacuum or something. I picture farmbot a bit faster with a scarecrow on top chasing the deer away, lol.
He is another genious...so humble...the future of farming is seen here...
the idea is really great, but the noise ... i don't know how loud it is in reality but in the video it seems to be very loud?
kind of soothing to me .. ^^
You'll want it in a greenhouse anyway.
Agreed, those stepper motors are loud but I would considre it to be still in the beta prototyping stage quieter motors will be needed because folks next door will complaine after a while, than again i can see it being a "Zombie magnet" attracting unwanter moochers that will harvest your produce when you are not home. it is always a problum with pea patch, or community gardens.
@@rickcoona he just uses cheapest stepper drivers. If you use TMC based drivers you would barely hear steppers.
If it actually makes the noise that I'm hearing, I'm surprised the neighbours haven't thrown a grenade over the fence. To be very honest here, if you have drip irrigation on a timer, you could have a garden three to four times the size of this one with only minor maintenance lasting perhaps one hour, once per week. Less, if you're incredibly lazy, and you'll still likely get 3/4 survival rate based on the consistent water alone.
my concern with their method of watering is getting water on the leaves and the risk of different molds and mildews and fungi and other diseases. drip irrigation solves all that, plus as you said, it would allow for something larger. also they arent taking into account with their grid based system that some plants are gona need more space than others. lots of improvements to be made but still very good idea and atleast ppl are thinking about this stuff.
Nice integration and video. The tool head registration is a cool design. Thanks for posting.
I'd like to see the tracks suspended away from the soil up high. They would easily get jammed but as a hanging unit it would make more sense. It could also then move to multiple beds if on a hanging track. Very cool project!
hey Elon, I found your first astronaut for mission Mars
I notice it is limited in length by its cables. This could be altered.
Getting gardens as automated as possible is extremely important. Time liberation. I look forward to these advents and I greatly loved your video yo! Kudos! Work smarter yall!
Awesome idea and build! I wonder if you line the ends of the beds up even. Then run the bot like in series. By having the bot cross over to another set of tools for each bed ( A bed - B bed - C bed ). That way you only need one gantry that works all the beds. You young man are amazing!
If you need to travel for a week, I suggest adding a bit more mulch, works great. Sometimes more technology is not the answer (but we do in in "technophile" times. Speaking against it is a capital sin). It's funny that he describes gardening as hard and then goes on to create a complex machine :-) While it is clever and I applaud him for innovating, I feel that gardening is already open source and democratic.
your missing the point, we want to take that human element out of gardening, and automate it...
not everything is about human emotion
suburban homestead wait but i am human! noooo... lucky my life span is shorter than the development time for this project
Sigh, not everyone enjoys what you do, in no way will I ever find gardening, enjoyable or relaxing, I would rather melt metal and use a lathe for that...... but thats ok, just like you can buy machines and tools others have created, I can buy this to do a task that I do not find fun.
I have other ways of connecting, hunting/fishing etc.
So many have missed the point.
Precisely! Mulch goes a long way.
suburban homestead, how does the human body being obsolete follow from wanting to automate gardening??
BREAKING NEWS: MAN STEALS FLOWER BED
This is absolutely brilliant! It does seem a bit noisy. I'm sure that can be improved on though. If he's clever enough to create it he's clever enough to figure out how to make it quieter.
Its just a matter of price. It stays outside so he does not care. But if you want to pay to make it quieter, just replace stepper drivers.
This is pretty cool, as a long time home gardener I will tell anyone paying attention; if you aren't using automatic watering you haven't lived. I got a cheap setup way under $100 om Amazon a few years ago, I have now tripled the setup. It's mind-blowing how much better everything does.
combine it with aquaponics so u get no weeds anyway
lets research all kinds of new farming methods!
This is WAY over engineered. You can handle the watering with drip irrigation system ($50) and a timer ($30).
It’s not just about watering, it’s about being able to do every step automated
Alright maybe you don't need the watering tool head but it does a lot of other stuff too.
and then we also have hydroponics, no need to water.
It's not over-engineered, it's just the wrong approach to engineering: it's a tool that tries to do many things, instead of just one thing. A vacuum cleaner is a great invention because it's easy to use and vacuums really well...because it only does that one thing. If it also washed your windows, washed your clothes, folded your laundry and made you breakfast, it would be a nightmare to build, market, not to mention use. And the self driving vacuum cleaners are an improvement, in a lot of contexts, even over the classic vacuum cleaner: but, again, because they just do one thing.
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But, that aside, guess what: you CAN improve on a $50 drip irrigation system and a $30 timer. That's not the perfect technology for the job. I know, because I tried it. It's shit. The drip gets clogged all the time, the connections leak so the paths are muddy (only thing worse than stepping in mud on your garden path: your dog stepping in mud in a garden path), gets in the way of every other tool in the garden (so you have to collect it, and then put it back, a dozen times or more per season), and the timer is stupid (it doesn't water based on the needs of the plant, the weather, etc., so you have to keep messing with it, and it's a pain in the ass). It's also inflexible (you have to plant to where the holes are, which is almost never the most efficient spacing). Frankly, it's worse than even just watering out of a hose, in most cases, and no, it's not more environmentally friendly: you save some water with the drip, but you do so while using massive amounts of plastic. That's not good for the environment, and, maybe even more importantly: a garden full of plastic is butt ugly. Why would you want an ugly garden?
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If someone told me here's a neat little robot that will water all the crops in a sizeable garden, autonomously, based on their specific needs (different plants need different amounts of water, in fact the same plant needs different watering at different stages of development), while saving water compared to overhead irrigation (which at least works, unlike the shitty drip system), and without filling my garden with ugly plastics, I would pay up to $1,000 for that. Someone with a serious farm business would pay a lot more.
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Even for a middle class hobbyist with a decent size garden, that's easily a $920 improvement over the drip irrigation system you're suggesting. Just the right amount of engineering.
Thanks for this, I saved it for when I graduate and buy a home. I studied Public Management, so really appreciate this is all open source and made easily for a noob like me.
The stage to sow the seed can have a bottle of seeds seeds which can be picked up and moved like an array continuously and have a sort back plaining roller attached to cover the soil as the seeds are sowed. I am thinking of doing as well. Good to see this, something I was thinking exactly with 3D printer.
Also I was thinking if we can to do on a multi staged farm, where we have levels of farm stacked upon each other.
A snail salter might be a good tool idea.
or consistent 3d scanning and a claw
or consistent 3d scanning and a claw
use Epsom salts on your garden for fertilizer, kills snails!
There's a "slugbot" that's actually powered by eating slugs. Maybe we can forgo the expensive solar panels, heh.
While the concept in theory is good, but execution is poor in most aspects. I've been working in industrial automation and have designed multitude of automated and robotic devices for many years, and I see a ton of flaws in this project - starting from the very build of the device itself, down to practical issues from actual gardening point of view. But at least guy is doing something instead of sitting on couch drinking beer, which is good, so best of luck.
Artūrs Savickis nice to know you have a better solution. Thank you for sharing it.
Awesome idea. This has enormous potential. Great Open Source Project.
I can imagine this thing detecting a slug breaching the perimeter and immediately sending out the multi spiked tool to destroy the slug. Marvellous. On a warm damp night it would be very busy.
The whole point of having a garden is to be hands on with your food though. And top watering is inefficient and can encourage powdery mildew. You can set up drip irrigation with a timer and fertigation for way less than this.
the whole point of having a garden is growing stuff.
And what a massive barrier to entry just to "grow stuff." I'll stick with sheet mulching. :)
Yeah, I'm amazed by all the naysayers; this really is quite impressive and a possible solution to several issues plaguing our food system currently. Having live produce outside your back door is obviously nice (and most people do not have time or desire to maintain a traditional garden); however, the real boon I see is how something like Farm Bot would help address the exorbitant amount of waste currently generated at the retail and consumer level, not to mention the methane gas released when that organic waste goes in a landfill and is unable to decompose aerobically. So, in summary: a thought-provoking, forward-thinking use of modern technology-although that is a good point about drip vs. top water irrigation. But seriously, the peanut gallery of Debbie Downers is downright nauseating.
@Tyler, i can tell you that traditional growing of plants to avoid massive waste is not the right way. Currently there is a big development of commercially viable growing under led light. While i get it that people on the instance of that feel that to be very unnatural, it does massively improve the ability to control input, growth, waste and output. Input as you don't use soil but go fully hydroponic, thus majorly reducing the amount of fertilizer and such needed. Growth as you can (proven currently) put out 100 fold of the normal production on open soil per layer and it reduces waste to a minimum as you don't have any issues with bugs, diseases and bad weather. Furthermore, being able to control temperature, humidity and light you are fully able to control the size of crop you harvest as well as the taste. Very indepth research into this has already proven that strawberries and slaw can be grown with better taste then traditional supermarket quality. More variety is yet to come.
www.digitaltrends.com/cool-tech/cool-techphilips-led-farm-change-the-food-industry-aid-in-world-hunger/
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That said, i believe the farmbot, at 3500 dollar for this size crop tending is waaaaay out of reach of being a serious contender for normal people wanting good food.
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My bet is fully on led farming being the next big breakthrough in efficient, high quality, good and healthy food. Currently the price range of the led systems is that high that it is difficult to get commercially viable for many different foods, but that will soon change.
what if we setup our garden to work with nature to begin with. Tech like, soil-food web, hugelKultur (google it) raised beds, permaculture principles are all a good place to start. Accessible, intelligent, low cost, self-maintaining. Over time it gets better and better. Kinda like what nature has been doing ... forever.
I think he'll end up working with Musk on his mission to survive on Mars. This is even more in other worlds than it is here.
A primitive iteration, but the concept is there, no small feat!!! Kudos for pioneering a new small technology, one with enormous potential for good when fully realized and available in scale as well as demonetized. Open sourcing was brilliant! Staying tuned to see what is next....... (As noticed on comments below, the noise heard when the robot operated was from the camera operating in conjunction with the gantry.)
I can see this as most practical for indoor, greenhouse, multi-level farming. Some of these commercial greenhouses can cover enormous spaces, with grow-lights and many automated systems. This will allow for more efficient, organic growing to be done in less space, with fewer employees needed to manage the space. I think it would find it's best use as an indoor, rather than outdoor system. This can be adapted to the soil-less growing systems now being developed.
hahaha totally overkill for lazy people, a rain water barrel with drip water system to each plant, keeps them alive when needed.. I love the Open source though it's the way to go.
The robot should be able to pay for itself in maybe NEVER years.
Great idea. I think things like this is the way forward. I have an allotment in the UK and covered site with landscape fabric to stop weeds, then built my raised beds ontop and filled with a mixture of composts and coir, set up solar powered drip watering. I'd like to have something like this but it's a bit costly at the moment and limited to that bed. If you were to put the crop management software in some sort of robot not much fancier than a remote controlled car with a reaching arm,it could be cheaper and could go anywhere in your garden.
I am lazy and sometimes busy studying. this is what might help practically to have a garden that feeds , love from Bangladesh 🇧🇩
the folly of the $64 dollar tomato
sure where are they then?
The early costs easily get displaced by the long term goal.
That's without the dollar depreciating.. But hey, must be one tasty tomato..
Perhaps true, but I think you've missed the point of the build.
It is hard dealing with twits sometimes isn't it.
Never in my life have I felt the need more than right now to not only spend 2000 doll hairs on motion control electronics, 80/20, and a computer with a g-code interpreter but also put all of those electronics outside over a 3'x8' plot of soil so I can grow a 45 day crop like lettuce less efficiently than by hand. For the love of god, just make a cnc machine. Not a cnc machine to garden for you. Poorly.
Such a brilliant young man - Good luck to you and good investors to your ideas!
Beautiful. Thank you for sharing.
Nice. Not very practical but still nice.
Exactly, this is more time that what its worth, and expensive.
Well just like any other technology, prices will go down
Well, considering how expensive organic vegetables may be in some places and how time draining traditional farming is, this can end up becoming quite the smart investment, specially if you go bigger and start selling some of your vegetables to your neighbors (at a fair price, of course, nobody's gonna buy a $60 tomato)
I see this invention used on Mars after the atmosphere is created.
When we will have terraforming devices capable of creating atmosphere, simple and useless robots like this will long be obsolete. Just think before you comment.
this guy takes no prisoners :'D
The atmosphere will warm up the planet allowing the surface ice to melt. Now that the planet has liquid water and a desirable temperature plants will be able to grow. Humans will still need to "suit up" while outside their biodome. Hence the need for robots. Basically humans will tried to play "god"..... :(
not after the atmosphere is created, because that could take many many decades but i can see this being used in greenhouses on mars ahead of humans arriving
there's already an atmosphere but it's not like earth's
This is a really cool tool. There is a need for us to grow and control more of our own food, so this has a future as it will be made more costly with ramped up production.
Brilliant, thoughtful, and full of potential.