The FarmBot - Farming 3D Printer looks to solve world's food shortage

[Eddie]

Probably the biggest social issue facing the world today is the food shortage. All around the world there are people that are hungry, many of whom end up dying because of the lack of food. One organization, the FarmBot Foundation is looking to solve this, with an open source 3D printer-like machine called the FarmBot. It is a machine that is capable of undertaking basically any farm/gardening job. It is completely scalable and runs on open source hardware and open source software. Read more about this incredible project at:


http://3dprint.com/12325/farmbot-3d-farming-printer/

[Bob H]

How would one span 40 feet and provide 400 feet long? What might it cost? I suppose it would be possible to provide wheeled supports like pivot irrigation systems? Then where do you find the sensors? Has anyone built a small scale system yet?

[feiming]

I'll suggest to put it on a continuous track instead of rail. Guided by laser and gps. It will have a bigger coverage and less investment.

[Bob H]

I'll suggest to put it on a continuous track instead of rail. Guided by laser and gps. It will have a bigger coverage and less investment.

Accurate GPS is very expensive. Laser pointers are cheap enough for small applications. Maybe have a 3D system mounted on a tractor? But again it's all about affordable sensors. What are people using or thinking of using?

[Mechanicus]

What could this do besides plant seeds and water stuff? I could see automating those tasks, but cropping, pest removal, harvesting, diagnosis, tying up a leaning plant, recognizing problems, all of these are things that bot couldn't do.

Farming might be one of the few applications that would really benefit from androids, as opposed to form-follows-function type machines like we have. Come to think of it, many crops are essentially robot harvested, but it's with huge (expensive) processors purpose built for each crop, that still need humans to drive them.

But far a "garden bot" like this, I don't think we even have smart enough computers to deal with the diverse informational inputs of a diverse garden or variable crops. I hope we get there one day, though. Or maybe I don't, because a machine smart enough to garden is probably smart enough to figure out it's garden would be better off without humans. . . Aggghhhhhh!!!!! Cyberdyne is sending out terminators disguised as tomatillo plants!

[Feign]

Welcome to the board, Mechanicus, and I agree. Fully automated farming is the kind of idea that doesn't scale up well at all. I could see it possible in a small scale, well controlled hydroponic garden with no access for pests and other hazards, but in the kind of scale that would be required for major national food crops the maintenance burdens of automation outweigh the benefits.

Also, the core assumption of the project is flawed. Where is the food shortage that this seeks to alleviate? In every situation where I can find people starving in significant numbers, it is due to other people actively denying them food, rather than a systemic shortage. A bigger problem is mass malnutrition, but that is a matter of education more than supply.

[Mechanicus]

Thanks for the welcome. Sure looks like a neat idea!

[feiming]

Strap a camera and robotic arm then partner with farmville

[3D OZ]

It's a plough, it's a discer, it's a seeder? Are you kidding me?
Have you seen a large farm-scale tractor plough a 40 acre field? Have you seen the speed at which broadacre seeders work?
Can you imaging this contraption replacing huge harvestors or even being a serious consideration?
'Cause all farm fields are flat and perfectly suited for some massive mechanical gantry to span it's entire width.
Wow, some people really get carried away pushing "new technology" into places it just isn't suited to go.

In a greenhouse, planting and tending to seedlings maybe, large scale farming to feed the world's starving, not likely.

Not everything in the world can be 3D printed. Not that this thing is in any way a printer.

[sfrench27]

From the article (http://3dprint.com/12325/farmbot-3d-farming-printer/) "The hardware used is completely open source and totally scalable for use on any sized farm/garden plots"
This doesn't mean people are going to immediately try to replace conventional farming equipment and methods.
Perhaps some will start creating their own freshly grown items at home to combine with another 3D food printer to create new and more nutritious meals instead of eating out of box.
Perhaps this will better enable extra-planetary exploration by reducing crewtime required (which estimates cost upward of $10K/CM-hr).
Perhaps some will integrate the technology or adapt it for another use (I could really use a better cat pan cleaner and would have no issue paying inordinate sums of money to have an iPan).

Or, we could just sit back, focus on the negative and say...

• A rocket will never be able to leave the Earth's atmosphere.
  
  • The New York Times, January 13, 1920. The Times offered a retraction on July 17, 1969, as Apollo 11 was on its way to the moon.