EEVblog Electronics Community Forum
Products => Crowd Funded Projects => Topic started by: Cyberdragon on June 25, 2017, 10:04:30 pm
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https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/rorymackean/tertill-the-solar-powered-weeding-robot-for-home-g?ref=category_popular (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/rorymackean/tertill-the-solar-powered-weeding-robot-for-home-g?ref=category_popular)
Interesting...:popcorn:
EDIT: Wait...how does it know not to rip up all your sprouts?
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EDIT: Wait...how does it know not to rip up all your sprouts?
It is all in the video ;o)
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Weeding 100SQF ! :-DD
We have multiple flower beds which probably total a few thousand SQF. (Wife is Master Gardener and some of the weeding falls to me). Most beds have all kind of level variations and rock wall drops. Only two of the beds, flat, would be suited for this, may be 300SQF, which could still be interesting -- I will talk to my wife.
Because of the time I put on weeding, I thought about automated weeding some time back. In the research I made, I found there is some Midwest work being done for commercial application where the robot does weed identification and goes for the kill injecting a small shot of concentrated fertilizer. This causes a shock which the weed cannot tolerate and it dies. The fertilizer dose later dissolves through the dirt, becoming just a small dose of fertilizer. Very interesting idea thinking in long rows of plants...
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Yes, weeding 100sqft with a robot is silly, but I'm intrigued by the method. Between using simple-stupid height detection to figure out what's a weed and the scrubby action of the wheels to disrupt newly-germinating weeds, that's actually pretty smart. There's no real reason why you couldn't scale this up or deploy multiple robots to cover your 1000sqft megagardens.
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Cute idea but certainly very limited application. For one, who has a contiguous garden made up of almost flat wood-chip base nicely bordered and easy for the Tertill to navigate? I don't. In order to make the Tertill work in your garden you will have to design your planting beds to be friendly to this robot's operating methodology..... Almost flat surface of fine wood chip base, perimeter edges/fence that the Tertill can recognize and know when to turn around, and then keep an eye on things because weeds do have a habit of also growing right next to other tall plants.
I'd rather they made an automatic lawn-mower and not just concentrate on weeds (unless they already have such a robot). And throw in a weed-killer reservoir on the back and have it spray over suspected weeds as it passes over them. Let it maintain the lawn autonomously, cutting the grass a little each day for the entire season. That would seem to be more practical and have a wide range of use across most lawns.
I like the concept, but it seems you have to really design your garden from the beginning to be Tertill-friendly or it won't really work.
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There are several automatic lawnmowers available, I don't know if this company has any though.
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Will it kill slugs? Maybe it can spray salt at anything slimy :)
Now how do you build a slime sensor?
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Will it kill slugs? Maybe it can spray salt at anything slimy :)
Now how do you build a slime sensor?
They have been out there for many years(*). Ga-As with touchyfeelium dopping.
(*)Circa 1980's used by a firm called Ghost Busters