Instead of having to move your plants around to compensate for changing light, wouldn’t it be nice if they could just pack up and move themselves? Xiaolong Mu considered this and designed Chasing Sunlight, a tech-enabled flower pot equipped with light sensors and motorized wheels that debuted at this year’s ITP Winter Show.
In the daytime, its four light sensors guide it towards the brightest source. In the evenings, Chasing Sunlight rolls itself right back into the shade. “We think the plants also can live like mammal [sic] or insect, it can run and have its own desire,” Mu explains on his website. The device would even have presets to find the appropriate amounts of light needed for different plants. Owners, he suggests, would simply no longer “have to worry about the plants’ photosynthesis anymore.”
In the future, Mu sees the project as an easy-to-assemble DIY Arduino kit. Below, check out a video of Chasing Sunlight in action, as well as some of the behind-the-scenes photos of the project coming together:
Adafruit Perma-Proto Half-sized Breadboard PCB – Single: Customers have asked us to carry basic perf-board, but we never liked the look of most basic perf: its always crummy quality, with pads that flake off and no labeling. Then we thought about how people actually prototype – usually starting with a solderless breadboard and then transferring the parts to a more permanent PCB. That’s when we realized what people would really like is a proto board that makes it easy! Read more.
Analog 2-axis Thumb Joystick with Select Button + Breakout Board: This mini-kit makes it easy to mount a PSP/Xbox-like thumb joystick to your project. The thumbstick is an analog joystick – more accurate and sensitive than just ‘directional’ joysticks – with a ‘press in to select’ button. Since it’s analog, you’ll need two analog reading pins on your microcontroller to determine X and Y. Having an extra digital input will let you read the switch. Read more.
Adafruit publishes a wide range of writing and video content, including interviews and reporting on the maker market and the wider technology world. Our standards page is intended as a guide to best practices that Adafruit uses, as well as an outline of the ethical standards Adafruit aspires to. While Adafruit is not an independent journalistic institution, Adafruit strives to be a fair, informative, and positive voice within the community – check it out here: adafruit.com/editorialstandards
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 7pm ET! To join, head over to YouTube and check out the show’s live chat – we’ll post the link there.
