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."
I have looked at this several times. No way this thing can survive being outside 24/7/365. It's not waterproof where it counts, it needs a whole lot of refinement to make it to an actual 1.0 release device that can last outside through all types of weather for at least 3-4 years. The gantry is not self cleaning or sealed in any way, same for the tracks.
It's a great idea. and a fantastic early beta. but they need some industrial robotics guys to show them how to make it survive weather.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
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.
Or am I missing something obvious?
I don't know if it's obvious, but the missing thing is that this won't be the final word in automation of home agriculture.
I remember back when the first PCs came out, and they were rather ridiculous -- the amount of time it required to get them to do anything useful was such that it would almost certainly be easier to accomplish the same task with pen and paper, or with a typewriter.
But a certain type of person was drawn to them anyway, not because they were immediately useful, but because that person wanted explore what was possible and see how much further the ideas could be taken. And now, 40-some years later, we have inexpensive PCs and cell phones that are much more powerful than any other method, to the extent that most people wouldn't even consider handling most problems the "traditional way" as a realistic approach anymore.
Or, as Ben Franklin put it, you might as well ask, "What good is a newborn baby?"
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
FarOutBot... 420-blaze-it (Coming Soon to Colorado and other legal-ish places)
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
load it with seeds and water, etc
There's a 'bot for that.
This isn't even the first word in farm automation.
It's the first word (or close to it) in small-scale home garden automation. Traditional farm automation is all about scale, enabling fewer people to farm larger areas effectively. This isn't that. This is about enabling lazy/busy people to grow a highly-effective garden in limited space and with limited attention -- and probably limited understanding of how to do it. You don't have to learn how to care for different types of food plants, you can instead rely on software configuration provided by others who do know, and you don't have to go out and work in the garden every day.
'take back the food' whatever that vapid statement means
Yeah, that part is pretty silly.
However, I like homegrown veggies but I'm too lazy to garden. I don't mind planting or harvesting, but the daily regimen of watering and weeding is too tedious for me -- but I do like automation, tinkering and I have disposable income. I could see myself buying one of these.
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this will pick an entire field... certainly smaller options exist, but i doubt the ROI would be worth it - much like this gardening bot...
Obvious question....
Can it grow weed?