Meet the Gardening Robot that Could Grow Fresh Veggies in Space
Motherboard has the story on the gardening robot and smart growing system being designed by a group of graduate students with the goal of getting freshly grown food available to astronauts during space travel and possibly for future colonies on Mars:
That’s where SPOT and ROGR come in: a smart growing chamber and gardening robot, respectively, currently being developed by a graduate team at the University of Colorado Boulder.
The goal is to be able to grow fresh fruits and vegetables in the space environment. Not only will that allow astronauts to get some variety in their diet, but it gives them access to living, green, growing life in what is otherwise a sterile, metal box. Astronauts have reported greatly enjoying previous experiments that gave them a chance to tend to plants in space and help something thrive.
Eventually, SPOT and ROGR could help establish greenhouses on Mars to provide sustainable, fresh produce for colonies on the red planet.
Stop breadboarding and soldering – start making immediately! Adafruit’s Circuit Playground is jam-packed with LEDs, sensors, buttons, alligator clip pads and more. Build projects with Circuit Playground in a few minutes with the drag-and-drop MakeCode programming site, learn computer science using the CS Discoveries class on code.org, jump into CircuitPython to learn Python and hardware together, TinyGO, or even use the Arduino IDE. Circuit Playground Express is the newest and best Circuit Playground board, with support for CircuitPython, MakeCode, and Arduino. It has a powerful processor, 10 NeoPixels, mini speaker, InfraRed receive and transmit, two buttons, a switch, 14 alligator clip pads, and lots of sensors: capacitive touch, IR proximity, temperature, light, motion and sound. A whole wide world of electronics and coding is waiting for you, and it fits in the palm of your hand.
Have an amazing project to share? The Electronics Show and Tell is every Wednesday at 7:30pm ET! To join, head over to YouTube and check out the show’s live chat – we’ll post the link there.
Biohacking — Vitamin-C + Gelatin for Accelerated Recovery
Python for Microcontrollers — CircuitPython powers the Open Hardware Summit for 2020! #Python #Adafruit #CircuitPython @circuitpython @micropython @ThePSF @Adafruit
Adafruit IoT Monthly — Learning from IoT Projects, Adafruit Joins the LoRa Alliance, Ring Ransoms, and more!
