FarmBot

Description

FarmBot- a company based in California bought in the market, World’s first open source CNC farming machine (named also FarmBot). To increase farming efficiency and encourage precision farming, FarmBot is a perfect Robot for quick and hassle-free farming.

With a vision in 2011, Rory Aronson started working on creating a new product to improvise conventional farming methods. As a result of this hard work , the end product was the FarmBot. The robot is available as ready to assemble kit which can be easily put together using videos and documentation available on the official website.

FarmBot Kit

The kit consists of smartly selected parts which can sustain the extreme weather conditions. The primary structural elements made from Aluminium, also act as tracks to provide 3D movement. (More information is available on the official website). Furthermore, made from aluminium alloys, Brackets and connecting plates undergo the process of sandblasting, polishing and anodizing to obtain better looks and sustainability. (More information is available on the official website)

An open source Arduino Mega board and a top notch brain in form of Raspberry Pi 2,  together form the processing unit of the robot. The main advantage of this technology lies in the fact that it is open source. A large open source community of engineers, researchers and people from all domain makes the working easy for the layman. The robot gets its drive from four Nema 17 stepper motors which has a 1.7 inch x 1.7 inch faceplate and 12V, 1.68A current drawing capacity. Alongside this major electronics, other things include 29A, 12 V power supply (accepts both 110V and 220V) ,5V power adapter, RAMPS Shield ,Soil Sensor ,Solenoid valve ,Vacuum pump,Camera and various other cables and connecting wires to connect the circuit.

Carbon Footprint

The figure above clearly shows that FarmBot vegetables release lesser amount of Carbon dioxide compared to the veggies bought from stores.

Operation

Features like Drag and drop farming, and  crop growth scheduler allows customizing sequence for the period of plant growth. Furthermore, a real time operation using smartphone gives a manual control whenever necessary. Additionally, these features help farmers to choose the vegetables to be planted and their area of  plantation with greater ease through their website or personal smartphones.

Future

It is a definite masterpiece and with generosity of people at FarmBot, it is available as an open source platform. This shall open a completely new dimension in area of Precision farming and Agtech . Lastly, it will allow the researcher and farmers to come and contribute for better agriculture and a better future.