While we’ve seen lots of innovation in home grow tech over the past year, there’s been nothing quite as ambitious as Farmbot, a home robot farming system.
That’s because this Arduino powered, open-source robo-farmer can completely automate the growth of enough vegetables for one adult in a year. Of course, you’ll need to have your own yard in which to grow the veggies and add a whole lot of elbow grease to get one assembled, but the Farmbot shows we’re on the precipice of fully automated home-based microfarming.
One of the most exciting things about the Farmbot is that it’s open source, which means the creators have put all the design documents and software online and, as a result, people are making their own homemade Farmbots.
But if you’re like me and not that handy, you’d want a little help in the form of a pre-fabricated kit. Lucky for us, this is how Farmbot plans to make money. And according to an email update sent out this morning, the company has started the production of 350 of its Farmbot kits and expects to start shipping the kits to early backers by February.
Want to buy one of these robot farmers for the little plot of land in the backyard? You’ll have to wait. The company won’t take new orders to July of this year. Of course, you can always make one of your own, but my guess is since the company has open-sourced the documents, chances are other entrepreneurial makers might get into the automated farm manufacturing business.
You can see how the Farmbot works below:
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