Slashdot Mirror
Open Source Gardening Robot 'FarmBot' Raises $560,000
Slashdot reader Paul Fernhout writes: FarmBot is an open-source gantry-crane-style outdoor robot for tending a garden bed. The project is crowdfunding a first production run and has raised US$561,486 of their US$100,000 goal -- with one day left to go... The onboard control system is based around a Raspberry Pi 3 computer and an Arduino Mega 2560 Microcontroller. Many of the parts are 3D printable.
Two years ago Slashdot covered the genesis of this project, describing its goal as simply "to increase food production by automating as much of it as possible."
Two years ago Slashdot covered the genesis of this project, describing its goal as simply "to increase food production by automating as much of it as possible."
Not at all. The ideas behind farmbot include precision planting, precision watering, and the ability to more easily weed since you know exactly where the plants are. All of these things are increasingly important in agriculture. why are they important? Well precision planting allows mechanical weed control, and it also means water need not be wasted where there is no plant planted. Think of it as drip irrigation without the hoses and a lot more precise.
When it comes to precision planting, that's actually possible on a large scale right now, almost to the same precision the farmbot can do. I've seen 40' wide corn planters that can place a seed to within an inch of the same spot year after year (if that's what you really wanted to do). Rows of corn are perfectly spaced so that the plants are exactly the same distance apart. Automatic section control means there is absolutely no overlap even when driving back across already-planted soil. It's pretty remarkable!
The farmbot idea is very interesting and I'm following it as it progresses. At present I cannot see it scaling beyond small garden plots. And even if you just scale it by putting in lots of small plots, there is an energy cost there to running these robots. There's an energy cost to conventional farming of course, but the carbon cost of mechanically removing all the weeds at a large scale is often far more than using herbicide.
That said, the farmbot is very cool and I think it will turn out to be really productive for some kinds of food growing, such as your garden. You joke about being too lazy, but the fact is, most people simply don't have time to properly tend a garden so most don't, even those that would kind of like to. This would allow folks to grow their own food. That alone is a good and educational experience to have. I've often thought agriculture (even gardening) and computer nerds are a good fit. Technology really can help us get a little bit back to nature and having our own fresh food from time to time. Of course then people would have to relearn how to cook again.