How would you go about sculpting a garden in the 21st century? One answer, perhaps predictably, is with a 3D printer. Gone are the days of the Chia pet. Thanks to a team of students out of University of Maribor in Slovenia, today we can 3D print living sculptures of our own design.
PrintGREEN traces its roots to an art project undertaken by Maja Petek, Tina Zidanšek, Urška Skaza, Danica Rženičnik, and Simon Tržan — an engineering student who worked on the project’s 3D printer — all mentored by professor Dušan Zidar. It uses a modified CNC machine to print layers of clay soil, water, and grass seeds that germinate and sprout in short order.
The goal of the project was to meld art, technology, and nature. Hard to argue with the results. With the rising necessity of environmentally-conscious technologies in all areas, even gardening it seems, is not lacking for innovation.
If you’re looking to implement some more tech into your gardening, check out this homemade watering controller, as well as some space-saving solutions for urban gardening.
The old-school “freehand” 3D print method was to mix up starch based wallpaper paste and mix seed in it and squirt it out of a well rinsed dish soap bottle or similar.
That is amazingly awesome. Of course my first thought is “green graffiti”
Now it just needs an expansion board so multiple
filamentsseed sauces could be used.I’m certain that printing gardens would be a very flowering business.
So like a mobile Farmbot ? ( https://hackaday.com/2016/08/19/add-robotic-farming-to-your-backyard-with-farmbot-genesis/ )
Yes, but with more bad puns; preferably a hexapod robot. :)
Maybe you could have a motor either side of a field and scan a tool head back and forth across it to farm! …
… funnily enough that’s how they used to do it in the days of steam…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wc0QNh0P_0k
“Traces its roots”… heh heh