Developed by a team from California, this machine plants seeds, pulls weeds and waters plants individually.
Its ambitions might be smaller than the contraptions that can remotely plant miles of seeds, but Genesis looks incredibly impressive. Developed by a team of three from California, the kit is an autonomous machine that’s installed atop and around a small garden-in your backyard, on a rooftop, or inside a greenhouse or lab. Once built, Genesis performs nearly the entire gardening process prior to harvesting, including planting the seeds, watering each plant precisely and on a set schedule, monitoring conditions, and pulverizing pesky weeds. Check out how it works here.
While it’s a pretty high-tech contraption, the interface is very simple. The Internet-connected FarmBot is controlled via a web app that uses a Farmville-esque visual grid, letting you drag and drop the kind of plants you want into your digital garden. Genesis has 33 common crops loaded into its software so far (artichokes, chard, potatoes, peas, squash, etc) and it automatically spaces the varying plants appropriately, taking the guesswork out of having a diverse garden. And the app can be accessed from a computer, phone, or tablet, so you can tweak your plan from anywhere and send it to your backyard ‘bot.
What’s surprising is that Genesis is a fully open-source project. That means that the creators have released the source code for the software and the blueprints for all of the hardware pieces, so coders and engineers can easily modify Genesis and build their own parts. Many components can be made using 3D printers, and the software can be tweaked to add features—or improve those implemented by the company.
That open approach and focus on expandability also means that you can personalize Genesis for your garden layout and needs. For example, you can hook up a solar panel to power the ‘bot, or use a rain barrel to irrigate rather than connect a hose. Genesis is also something of a meteorologist: It monitors real-time weather conditions to better manage your garden.