Earlier quoted context omitted.
Plenty of off-grid power options, like solar, wind, and water.
And gasoline.
Yep, that does power plenty of tractors and tills already.
FarmBot: Open-source automated farming machine
31–40 of 44 posts
Re: FarmBot: Open-source automated farming machine
#32Half-baked pie in the sky musing:
What about a spindly-legged robot (picture those tall things in Half Life, or the killers in War of the Worlds) that wasn't constrained by rails? It used a camera to identify where to safely step, returned to a base to charge (solar on shed roof nearby) or replenish its (small) water and seed supply.
Sensors helped it check water moisture and know when to rewater. In its travels, it got a picture of which regions had the most sun, so it knew what would grow best and where.
Wonder if it could (with camera or sensor) identify what was growing where to help with decisions, or even remove upcoming weeds before they got established?
Re: FarmBot: Open-source automated farming machine
#33Earlier quoted context omitted.
As someone who lived and worked on farms, I agree that they're not practical right now. That said, I'll take on some of your other points. "there are no food crops that are economical to grow inside a greenhouse" - there are many organic lettuce/greens growers that put lie to this statement. I don't like the gantry system, mostly because what you stated. Also because it is _extremely_ expensive vs. other methods. If…
Regarding greenhouses, any example you cite I can say is way out of economical norms ;-) But the only way to make organic work (without throwing away half the produce or drowning the field in the few allowable chemicals) is to either do it indoors or in a part of the world where the pests don't exist yet. But that is neither here nor there. How do you get the extra robots installed on the radial systems? With gantry…
I'm thinking each individual boom arm can carry multiple robots. So you can service the entire radius faster.
As for robots with wheels, I was thinking about doing away with the gantries all together. Just let the robots move through the area themselves.
I understand better your gesture recognition method. It might make RSIs go away if the robot picked what the human pointed at. =)
And, yes, except in very few cases, greenhouses don't make sense. Someday...
Re: FarmBot: Open-source automated farming machine
#34I'm most interested in pushing this technology forward so we can use it on the moon or on mars. I think the moon would be a much more attractive destination if they had a few nice big gardens growing up there...
Re: FarmBot: Open-source automated farming machine
#35As someone who does farming (part time), I don't see these being practical. For low value bulk crops (corn, wheat, soybeans) the robot is too expensive and existing mechanization is too good. Even for high value stuff (grapes and other fruit) it will be too expensive. Maybe inside a highly controlled greenhouse this will be practical, but there are no food crops that are economical to grow inside a greenhouse. (It is…
You should read PG's column about doing things that don't scale.
Yeah, this will never be practical. But most of the building blocks that go into it are thinks you would need to automate farming. And it is interesting that someone is taking a stab at it.
Re: FarmBot: Open-source automated farming machine
#36Really interesting idea. I could see this being used to remotely manage a farm from anywhere in the world. Picture a dashboard with hookups to your video feeds and statistics. When it's time to harvest take it out of the ground put it in a hopper and wait for pickup.
Not to mention the impact of testing different field configurations in varying climates all over the world. Whether the robotic design of the system is cost efficient or not, we should be at least collecting and sharing this data now.
Re: FarmBot: Open-source automated farming machine
#37As someone who does farming (part time), I don't see these being practical. For low value bulk crops (corn, wheat, soybeans) the robot is too expensive and existing mechanization is too good. Even for high value stuff (grapes and other fruit) it will be too expensive. Maybe inside a highly controlled greenhouse this will be practical, but there are no food crops that are economical to grow inside a greenhouse. (It is…
I can't read the whitepaper due to work network restrictions (scribd? really?) but superficially this seems more directed towards DIY-er gardener types rather than industrial farming. That is to say, people who have no need for a giant combine harvester. For that purpose it seems to have the capability to automate some tedious jobs quite nicely. I would pay for a machine that grows vegetables in my backyard with litt…
I let kale and chard go to seed last year. I've had more kale and chard this year than I can harvest. Almost all of it volunteer. Also some other random greens that make a quite nice salad.
On the other hand, I've put in a ton of effort on tomatoes, and gotten very little to show for it. The climate just isn't friendly to them.
Re: FarmBot: Open-source automated farming machine
#38This is really cool. If these were ever used at scale it could make organic farming cheaper than non. For example instead of pesticides a robot like this could pick off bugs (and or scare them away). It could also pull weeds getting rid of the need for herbicide.
The design seems fundamentally unscalable due to the rails. I've been to farming areas and fields can go on for miles. They could have come up with something far more powerful just by sticking it on the front of a tractor and having some tanks/bins for consumables. Heck, they could have even started from common irrigation systems where you can have 400m of pipe on wheels you roll across the whole field. I have to won…
Dont you see? It's a robot for growing organic weed! Maybe some lettuce on the side.
Here is an idea for a startup: Shipping container weed farm. Order one online, plug in, insert seeds, press button.
Re: FarmBot: Open-source automated farming machine
#39Eventually, robots will be growing all kinds of food. The roofs of our houses will be covered with gardens.
They'll even inspect plants at regular intervals and remove bugs. They'll decide when fruit is ready to pick and share all the data with systems that buy, transport and use produce.
Re: FarmBot: Open-source automated farming machine
#40I would definitely be interested in some form of 'gardening bot'. This but at a smaller scale just for my garden.
At a smaller scale, I can sow the seed myself. I can harvest myself. What I do need automated is the areas where I consistently fail when trying to grow my own vegetable patch. Watering is the main one. Just having a sensor to detect when to switch on and off the hose pipe would probably save most of my crops. Slug control would be another - something to detect when a slug gets to close and zaps em with (preferably) a laser.