Yet another step towards smart technology. A California-based company known as FarmBot Inc has developed a robotic machine that will grow your crops for you, both planting and maintaining them. This is perfect in case you don’t have much of a green thumb.
You start off by selecting what crop you want and where you want each to crop grow within a planter setup using their application that functions both on a PC, tablet or phone.
You can build your entire planter out as simply as dragging what you want and dropping it wherever it needs to be. Once finished, FarmBot will begin prepping the soil and seeding the crops to their required depth. It will monitor the soil, water the crops and make sure they are growing at their best. It can gather data about weather, and more.
They can buy into the FarmBot and have them ship everything to you or you can 3D print most of the materials, ordering only what you need for the proprietary parts from them. All of which allowing you to customize the size of your setup.
It comes with a universal mount for all the various heads that the bot will automatically reach over and pick up depending on the task it needs to accomplish. Various heads including a seed injector, watering spout, soil sensor, camera and weed supressor.
They originally started the project on Kickstarter and the feedback they received was phenomenal, allowing them to raise over 8x the money they need to get the FarmBot rolling. It’s a pretty neat idea that could lead to an increase in home-grown crops by consumers and I am sure you will see that it will more than likely find its way to the industrial line of things. Imagine if we could mass produce crops with systems like these without the need for pesticides and weed killers.
For more information about the FarmBot or to pre-order, you can visit them online at https://farmbot.io where they have a welath of knowledge about it to share with you.
While you’re here, check out the following video that breaks everything down and demonstrates what the FarmBot is capable of.
