What if you had a robot gantry that could attach itself to existing centre pivot systems to do seeding and tillage?
Open Source Farming Robot
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Re: Open Source Farming Robot
#32I know cnc and farming, and I really don't see this product surviving. I can't find a shovel that lasts more than a few months on my small farm, I don't know how a big 3d printer is going to cut it in anything like real agricultural conditions. I would love to be wrong though, garden robots would be great, especially if they had lasers for slugs. Actually, forget the rest of the robot, all I really want is a slug las…
Just a crazy idea - they say you can do farming from anywhere using their app. So... What about Farming-as-a-Service. You assign users small patches, where they can do whatever they like, and how they like it, and any surviving vegetables are shipped to them. Sounds silly, and is mostly for lolz, may not be sustainable either, but who knows :) ?...
Re: Open Source Farming Robot
#33That's interesting, it's a large CNC machine and not a mobile robot. That makes sense.
Does it? The current construction severely limits the scale at which it could operate, so it will run out of work to do pretty quickly. That means it'll be idle most of the time. If you have a similar complexity robot but mobile, it could be trucking around a much larger field.
I don't think most people want to turn their yard into a serious farm. This is great for backyard gardens. I'd get a smaller table top version for my apartment.
Re: Open Source Farming Robot
#34I've built robots. I've built greenhouses. I like software and the occasional bit of farming. Thirs looks cute and fun, and I hope they iterate, but it's not really solving the right problems, and introduces its own.
1 - there are no straight lines on a farm. Maybe in a hydro setup built on concrete slab, in which case, why robot?
2 - needs a way to cover more ground. If it's not able to travel linearly indefinitely in one direction along a bed, there's no way to scale.
3 - grit. Precision CnC mechanisms and dirt do not mix. You can't keep farm things clean (unless hydro, and even then, things get wet and caked with fertilizer salt)
Ditch the linear ways for something like bike tires. There's an open source solar farm robot which rolls around weeding (can't find at the moment, maybe was a video). Not limited by a box. They need robust mechanisms which can stand up to farm abuse and are easy to service, grease, and replace (unless you hermetically seal the components, which is harder than it sounds).
Weeds are actually pretty easy to manage.
If someone wants to make an impact in the farm tech space, come up with a cheaper alternative for scooping and dumping dirt. A ride-on tractor can be had used for $500-800. But as soon as you start talking loaders, it's $2-3000 used, and tens of thousands for new. Also the smallest tend to be a 4 foot wide bucket and a few hundred pounds lift. I want something half or a quarter of that. Able to scoop 50 lbs of dirt, repeatedly, and dig holes/trenches. That would have a massive impact in agrarian communities around the world.
Re: Open Source Farming Robot
#35The only missing thing to this is a gun. To automatically shoot at random animals interested in your garden.
Re: Open Source Farming Robot
#36What if you had a robot gantry that could attach itself to existing centre pivot systems to do seeding and tillage?
Brilliant take. Especially if you use some sort of roller-coaster-tire style mechanism vs linear ways, which just aren't going to stay aligned.
It would need a position and feedback system outside of the current "servo and home position" method, because even with closed loop motors, the distance traversed isn't exact. We need a cheap, easy way to get accurate-ish absolute position (1-3cm), maybe acoustics and phase-based?
Re: Open Source Farming Robot
#37I know cnc and farming, and I really don't see this product surviving. I can't find a shovel that lasts more than a few months on my small farm, I don't know how a big 3d printer is going to cut it in anything like real agricultural conditions. I would love to be wrong though, garden robots would be great, especially if they had lasers for slugs. Actually, forget the rest of the robot, all I really want is a slug las…
Agreed, this is a nice hobby project but it is nowhere near ruggedized enough to survive the weather, let alone farming for more than the period of the demonstration. Too fragile, too many delicate exposed parts, grooves aimed upwards where moisture and dirt will collect and so on.
Props for trying though.
Re: Open Source Farming Robot
#38I've built robots. I've built greenhouses. I like software and the occasional bit of farming. Thirs looks cute and fun, and I hope they iterate, but it's not really solving the right problems, and introduces its own. 1 - there are no straight lines on a farm. Maybe in a hydro setup built on concrete slab, in which case, why robot? 2 - needs a way to cover more ground. If it's not able to travel linearly indefinitely…
This is a for small hipster raised bed farming in back yard. Maybe it doesn't have to scale to a size of a commercial farm
Re: Open Source Farming Robot
#39I know cnc and farming, and I really don't see this product surviving. I can't find a shovel that lasts more than a few months on my small farm, I don't know how a big 3d printer is going to cut it in anything like real agricultural conditions. I would love to be wrong though, garden robots would be great, especially if they had lasers for slugs. Actually, forget the rest of the robot, all I really want is a slug las…
Slug lazers ~= small flock of ducks
Not species-appropriate usually without enough roaming space and a lake .. so not for everyone :(
Btw, did I see the robot harvesting in the end? Everything else is fine, but at least this don't take away from me! :>
Re: Open Source Farming Robot
#40I know cnc and farming, and I really don't see this product surviving. I can't find a shovel that lasts more than a few months on my small farm, I don't know how a big 3d printer is going to cut it in anything like real agricultural conditions. I would love to be wrong though, garden robots would be great, especially if they had lasers for slugs. Actually, forget the rest of the robot, all I really want is a slug las…
Try Fiskars, they make light but sturdy gardening equipment