Open Source Farming Robot
I've built robots. I've built greenhouses. I like software and the occasional bit of farming. Thirs looks cute and fun, and I hope they iterate, but it's not really solving the right problems, and introduces its own.<p>1 - there are no straight lines on a farm. Maybe in a hydro setup built on concrete slab, in which case, why robot?<p>2 - needs a way to cover more ground. If it's not able to travel linearly indefinitely in one direction along a bed, there's no way to scale.<p>3 - grit. Precision CnC mechanisms and dirt do not mix. You can't keep farm things clean (unless hydro, and even then, things get wet and caked with fertilizer salt)<p>Ditch the linear ways for something like bike tires. There's an open source solar farm robot which rolls around weeding (can't find at the moment, maybe was a video). Not limited by a box. They need robust mechanisms which can stand up to farm abuse and are easy to service, grease, and replace (unless you hermetically seal the components, which is harder than it sounds).<p>Weeds are actually pretty easy to manage.<p>If someone wants to make an impact in the farm tech space, come up with a cheaper alternative for scooping and dumping dirt. A ride-on tractor can be had used for $500-800. But as soon as you start talking loaders, it's $2-3000 used, and tens of thousands for new. Also the smallest tend to be a 4 foot wide bucket and a few hundred pounds lift. I want something half or a quarter of that. Able to scoop 50 lbs of dirt, repeatedly, and dig holes/trenches. That would have a massive impact in agrarian communities around the world.