FarmBot is an

open source Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use and view the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open source model is a decentrali ...

precision agriculture CNC farming project consisting of a Cartesian coordinate robot farming machine,

software Software consists of computer programs that instruct the Execution (computing), execution of a computer. Software also includes design documents and specifications. The history of software is closely tied to the development of digital comput ...

and documentation including a farming

data repository Research data archiving is the long-term storage of scholarly research data, including the natural sciences, social sciences, and life sciences. The various academic journals have differing policies regarding how much of their data and methods re ...

. The project aims to ''"Create an open and accessible technology aiding everyone to grow food and to grow food for everyone."''

History

The FarmBot project was started in 2011 by American Rory Aronson whilst studying mechanical engineering at

California Polytechnic State University California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo (Cal Poly San Luis Obispo or Cal Poly) is a public university in San Luis Obispo County, California, United States, - Cites the location of the university and shows that the university ...

. Aronson attended an elective course in

organic agriculture Organic farming, also known as organic agriculture or ecological farming or biological farming,Labelling, article 30 o''Regulation (EU) 2018/848 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 30 May 2024 on organic production and labelling of ...

where he learned about a

tractor A tractor is an engineering vehicle specifically designed to deliver a high tractive effort (or torque) at slow speeds, for the purposes of hauling a Trailer (vehicle), trailer or machinery such as that used in agriculture, mining or constructio ...

that used machine vision to detect and cover weeds which removed the need for herbicides or manual labour, the tractor cost over US$1 million. In March 2014 Aronson began working on the project full-time funded by a grant from the

Shuttleworth Foundation Shuttleworth may refer to: * Shuttleworth (surname) * Shuttleworth, Greater Manchester (historically in Lancashire), a hamlet at the northeastern extremity of the Metropolitan Borough of Bury, England * Shuttleworth (canvassing) * The Shuttleworth ...

. Firmware developer Tim Evers and software developer Rick Carlino later joined the project as core developers. Rory Aronson created the company Farmbot.io to provide hardware kits and software services and to serve as a funding source to maintain the open source community. In 2014 and 2015, FarmBot was entered into the

Hackaday ''Hackaday'' is a hardware hacking website. It was founded in 2004 as a web magazine. Since 2014, Hackaday also hosts a community database of open-source hardware designs. History Hackaday was founded in 2004 by Phillip Torrone as a web maga ...

Prize, where it became a finalist in 2015. After nine design iterations, the Farmbot Genesis began

preorder In mathematics, especially in order theory, a preorder or quasiorder is a binary relation that is reflexive relation, reflexive and Transitive relation, transitive. The name is meant to suggest that preorders are ''almost'' partial orders, ...

s in July 2016 as the first commercially available version of FarmBot.

Farmbot Genesis

Capabilities

The FarmBot Genesis is able to plant over 30 different crops within the same area at the same time and is able to operate indoors, outdoors and in covered areas. It can perform almost all processes prior to harvesting including

sowing Sowing is the process of planting seeds. An area that has had seeds planted in it will be described as a sowed or sown area. Plants which are usually sown Among the major field crops, oats, wheat, and rye are sown, grasses and legumes are ...

, mechanical

weed control Weed control is a type of pest control, which attempts to stop or reduce growth of weeds, especially noxious weeds, with the aim of reducing their competition with desired flora and fauna including domesticated plants and livestock, and in natu ...

and watering while accounting for factors such as age of the plant and local weather conditions. FarmBot Genesis Seed Injection

FarmBot Genesis is controlled through a web based interface allowing remote access from any location on most internet enabled devices. It uses an online crop database called OpenFarm to create an optimal planting plan based on the size of the adult crop.

Components

The Farmbot Genesis is an

hardware machine and is designed around reproduce-ability and availability of components, it can be created using common tools and processes. Its electronics stack consists of a Raspberry Pi 3 and Arduino Mega 2560 with a RAMPS 1.4 shield and a camera to record data. The universal tool mount and other tools are

3D printed 3D printing, or additive manufacturing, is the construction of a three-dimensional object from a CAD model or a digital 3D model. It can be done in a variety of processes in which material is deposited, joined or solidified under computer ...

and are designed to be created with hobby level fused deposition model 3D printers e.g. a RepRap printer. It has two electrical connections and connectors for liquid or gas which are magnetically coupled. The software for the FarmBot Genesis runs through a web interface allowing the machine to be controlled on most internet enabled devices. All software is available under the

MIT license The MIT License is a permissive software license originating at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the late 1980s. As a permissive license, it puts very few restrictions on reuse and therefore has high license compatibility. Unl ...

and is available on

GitHub GitHub () is a Proprietary software, proprietary developer platform that allows developers to create, store, manage, and share their code. It uses Git to provide distributed version control and GitHub itself provides access control, bug trackin ...

References

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External links