Robotic Gardening M-Term

  Today was the second day of our Robotic Gardening M-Term! We started the day by doing some research on the three things needed to sustain our robot in the garden: water, WiFi, and power. We learned that our water system needs to produce a minimum force of 25 PSI, which means that we will need a water pump in our rain barrel. For power, we are able to use the existing outlets in the garden area, which means we won’t have to run any additional wiring. However, the issue of wifi did not turn out to be as simple. We tested the wifi in the garden with our computers, and it worked great. However, when we went back inside and installed the operating system for our FarmBot, turned it on, and attempted to connect to wifi, nothing happened. We re-flashed the micro-SD with the operating system, and attempted to connect again, but it just wouldn’t work. After several hours, and a ton of help from our friends in IT, we figured out that the wifi security system that the school uses renders the...

Today was the first day of our Robotic Gardening M-Term! We began today by going over the basics of the course, such as our goals and thoughts for the next two weeks. After everyone was familiar with the project, we began brainstorming how we want to use our FarmBot. After construction and installation, this robot will be able to fully manage a small garden bed, only needing water, electricity, and wifi from outside sources. However, we needed to decide whether or not we wanted to use a mobile raised bed (on wheels), or have a stationary bed (in the dirt). In the end, we opted to go for the cheaper and more simplistic stationary option.  After we had decided how to go about this project, we began building our robot! We decided to build the bulk of the robot indoors, where we can work more comfortably, before we eventually move it outside. The downside of this is that we cannot use the exact dimensions of our soon-to-be garden bed, so we will need to make adjustments when we move it...