This robot waters the plants while you're on holiday! You have to line up the plants and through a GUI in Microsoft Access you can input the water demands per plant (how many times per week the plant needs water and how much). The water reservoir contains a mixer and an aeration unit (through lego compressors) to avoid dead water. The only thing not lego about it is the water pump and the robot is controlled by an Arduino Duemilanove. I've used a selfmade multipurpose motor driver pcb so all the electronics visisble aren't used ;)
Watering the plants while you're on holiday
Actuators / output devices: motors with rotary encoders
I just have to ask… why did you choose a lego base run by an arduino? Any reason or did you just have that in your work area waiting to be used? Good job!
nice and useful robot there just a little slow but it won’t matter if you are really on a holiday
i am waiting for some atmegas and i have been planning to make a robot like this for my aquarium so that it will feed the fishes with fish food every 12 hours and turn off the filter for some 20 minutes so that fishes can finish their food in that time.
I’ve always been a fan of Lego. With Lego it’s more easy to build something that suits the demands. Next to that: I’m a bit lazy and Arduino is easy to program. But since I like electronics, I decided to build the electronics myself instead of using the NXT platform. Using an Arduino instead of NXT programming means also more flexibility and it’s a lot cheaper.
Lego has overpriced so many sensors. If I wanted a touch sensor (known to the rest of lmr as a switch) I have to pay $27!!! I can get a switch at my local Jaycar for about $2… I have moved to Arduino and never looked back although I do like to use Lego in my robots too, it’s just so easy to modify and the mechanisms are very smooth as well.
Nice work on the robot by the way, it looks pretty awesome. I like the extreme close ups just before the water starts coming out on the video.
This Lego plant-watering robot is quite amazing and there are people that are building all kinds of objects from Lego parts. Some of them are so complicated that it takes weeks to finish them. If you check out more information about this LEGO franchise you will find out how dedicated the ones that are working there actually are.
just a little slow but it won’t matter if you are really on a holiday 