3 ms·

If anyone is curious I am working on an open source farming robot meant to be used for regenerative agriculture techniques. My hope is that we can build roboti

If anyone is curious I am working on an open source farming robot meant to be used for regenerative agriculture techniques. My hope is that we can build robotic tools that work the land more like human hands do instead of the big tools and poisons we use today. If you like that kind of thing please take a look: https://community.twistedfields.com/t/introducing-acorn-a-precision-farming-rover-from-twisted-fields/17 https://community.twistedfields.com/t/introducing-acorn-a-pr...

hinkley 6y ago
On the plus side, your rover is going to work better with contour planting, which is part of the solution to our problems. The downside is that most of the post-modern agricultural variants embrace observation as being critical, and we of all people should know that statistics and graphs are not a substitute for actually looking at things. Having a robot phone home is not the same as knowing what's going on. As an aside, I think you're going to need chonkier wheels on that thing, and better resistance to mud (what are those boxes right above the wheels?) Also you should research fork rake, and how it relates to the tendency of a wheeled vehicle to maintain or change direction. There may be a wheel design that affords you more cycles for other activities besides keeping the vehicle tracking straight.
- TaylorAlexander 6y ago
  Thanks! Yes I do dream of contours cut all through a town where small robots can tend to locally grown food. And of course for large farms it’s still a help if there are any hills. Having people on the ground is very important. Sometimes in my mind I imagine a fully automated farm but I try to push back against myself and think more of how this can be a tool to help people do their work. For observation I do want to be able to provide high resolution images stitched together and geolocated so that a record of observations is available for review now and for posterity. There’s no substitute for walking the field and observing with human eyes. Bending down and looking close. Picking a leaf, breaking it open, and smelling it. I do think we will need great optics and high resolution imagers, plus a high res imager on an arm for detailed remote views. I do want to teach these machines to do some diagnosis on their own. But ultimately this will be a tool to aid a farmer, not replace them. I have a new video coming soon that shows our replacement drive system. You’re right that the system shown in that video was susceptible to mud. The new system has operated for weeks in the rain and mud and done well. It’s a fully sealed geared hubmotor system. Rake is on our minds too. I think we might move to a custom fork soon. Thanks for your comments!
bluGill 6y ago
That thing is worse for the soil than a big tractor. It has to make more tire tracks to cover the field, and soil compaction is sub liner with weight so overall it is doing more damage. Sure where the tractor tires are it is worse, but the tractor tires skip a lot of space those harm.
- TaylorAlexander 6y ago
  Reducing soil compaction has been an important goal of ours. The machine is extremely light compared to a tractor (I can lift one end of the machine on my own), and it is designed to be easily made different widths. I’m pretty confident the total soil compaction would be less with our machine especially with an extra wide version.

hinkley 6y ago

On the plus side, your rover is going to work better with contour planting, which is part of the solution to our problems. The downside is that most of the post-modern agricultural variants embrace observation as being critical, and we of all people should know that statistics and graphs are not a substitute for actually looking at things. Having a robot phone home is not the same as knowing what's going on. As an aside, I think you're going to need chonkier wheels on that thing, and better resistance to mud (what are those boxes right above the wheels?) Also you should research fork rake, and how it relates to the tendency of a wheeled vehicle to maintain or change direction. There may be a wheel design that affords you more cycles for other activities besides keeping the vehicle tracking straight.

TaylorAlexander 6y ago
Thanks! Yes I do dream of contours cut all through a town where small robots can tend to locally grown food. And of course for large farms it’s still a help if there are any hills. Having people on the ground is very important. Sometimes in my mind I imagine a fully automated farm but I try to push back against myself and think more of how this can be a tool to help people do their work. For observation I do want to be able to provide high resolution images stitched together and geolocated so that a record of observations is available for review now and for posterity. There’s no substitute for walking the field and observing with human eyes. Bending down and looking close. Picking a leaf, breaking it open, and smelling it. I do think we will need great optics and high resolution imagers, plus a high res imager on an arm for detailed remote views. I do want to teach these machines to do some diagnosis on their own. But ultimately this will be a tool to aid a farmer, not replace them. I have a new video coming soon that shows our replacement drive system. You’re right that the system shown in that video was susceptible to mud. The new system has operated for weeks in the rain and mud and done well. It’s a fully sealed geared hubmotor system. Rake is on our minds too. I think we might move to a custom fork soon. Thanks for your comments!

bluGill 6y ago

That thing is worse for the soil than a big tractor. It has to make more tire tracks to cover the field, and soil compaction is sub liner with weight so overall it is doing more damage. Sure where the tractor tires are it is worse, but the tractor tires skip a lot of space those harm.

TaylorAlexander 6y ago
Reducing soil compaction has been an important goal of ours. The machine is extremely light compared to a tractor (I can lift one end of the machine on my own), and it is designed to be easily made different widths. I’m pretty confident the total soil compaction would be less with our machine especially with an extra wide version.