There are two types of people: ones with green thumbs, and ones that kill their cacti because they forgot to water them for over a year. Sadly, we are of the latter group. We currently have a resilient spider plant that looks like it could use more sun. Now there’s a way for it to catch those rays wherever they may shine, thanks to [Dot Matrix] of Instructables. She made a mobile planter that actively seeks out sunlight.
The planter’s base was made of plywood, topped with fake grass and a watering can to hold the plant. Anything above the planter base can be modified to whatever desired aesthetic. A CRT planter may be too heavy, but there are countless ways to personalize it. [Dot] used an Afinia 3D printer to make various mounts and brackets with ABS plastic. The planter was controlled by an Arduino Micro and used a pair of 0.5W solar panels and Parallax PING))) sensors to decide how it should move from its current position. If the planter would fall or hit an object moving forward, it would reverse and turn on wheels powered by Parallax continuous rotation servos. It would evaluate its new position, repeating the process if it was in danger. Once the planter was safe, it used the solar panels to detect the most sunlight: the sum of the panels determines the area’s brightness while the individual panels’ readings were used to move the planter towards a brighter area. The sun-seeking continued until the sunniest spot was found (defined in the code). Here, the planter remained idle for 10 minutes before restarting the process.
We think [Dot’s] planter is a fun way to keep plants happy and healthy in spite of us. See a video of the planter after the break.
Wait. Would this technically make the plant a cyborg? Or would it be the plant equivalent of a mech?
Cool project :)
That said if RadioShack wants me to go into their store fronts more than twice a year only to end up leaving disappointed because their stock is lacking while their prices are not. They might want to tackle those two points of contention as apposed to doing little other than trying to drill their existence into peoples psyches.
Hmm, I could use this to move my lawn chair out of the sun if it gets to sunny so I don’t burn when I fall asleep, I am Lazyman!
if you are lazy, you will never build yourself that automatic lawn chair anyways…
That’s… a really good idea. A chair that tracks the sun so you always get how much sun you want.
…I might start working on that.
If you can find a cheap electric wheelchair in Craigslist your half way there.
Apparently the author has no pets or small children – which would soon demolish such a project.
I thought the project was a “pet”. Hell, the kids would just call out “MOM!! The plant moved again!”
I could definitely see my cats knocking the plant and using the mobile platform for their own sunbathing enjoyment.
Somehow the look of this reminds me of a daelek.
Defoliate, defoliate.