The Farm Hack River of Activity

As of 1/23/14, the link is dead. Anyone have an updated one? I'm all for open source and DIY, but I also like simple and working. The cost of the parts for Rover is comparable to this device. Very interesting.

The system, as it currently exists, relies on the cellphone + cellphone library to determine if the power has failed/been turned off. If it detects that, it automatically sends a text that the "fence is down". This was conceived of as a secondary feature, with the primary feature being the ability to dis-able the fence from afar. There is no current capability to test the charge on the fence, which seems like what you would need to see if a battery/solar powered fence is not working. The Arduino could run off of solar, though, so it's not impossible.

Thanks for posting. These are super helpful. Once they are posted we can also embed the models in our posts and use them for future tool postings.

The farmhack collection of other sketchup models is here http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/cldetails?mid=cc34dd5b3d6df3291e32d9fc07262782&ct=mdcc

Could you post your sketchup files to the 3d warehouse? I would be happy to add them to the Farm Hack collection already started.

That would be great! Open office or Excel both work fine for me.

I agree that a common "trunk" for farm practice record keeping is needed - that can have "branches" for all the various type of analysis that a farm might want to do along the way. As you mention it doesn't make sense to enter the same data in several systems throughout the year.

Other spreadsheet products might be considered too - Open office and google docs spreadsheets for example. Google docs/drive has a mobile interface that would make editing in the field fairly easy. There are now lots of mobile spreadsheets and mobile excel, - the question I suppose is integration.

I think that integration of enterprise analysis tools with the field planning and records keeping will become inevitable at some level - and in the future may be facilitated by farm hack tools like http://farmhack.net/shop/apitronics to auto populate fields or http://farmhack.net/tools/ifarm-imaging-agricultural-research-and-manage... or provide an up to date visual reference to spreadsheet data without even getting into georeferenced images and GIS etc.

Here is a list of the related tools listed so far on Farm Hack
http://farmhack.net/tools/enterprise-budgets-lists-downloads
http://farmhack.net/tools/open-enterprise-budget-organic-eggs
http://farmhack.net/tools/oilseed-oil-meal-and-biodiesel-cost-calculator
http://farmhack.net/tools/crop-planning-software

Gocrop.com out of UVM is also coming along for nutrient management analysis. It has a mobile interface and may become open source as it evolves.

I'm curious to know what parts of the software (http://farmhack.net/tools/crop-planning-software) don't fit your farm and how I could make the software more flexible or useful. All feedback is welcome!

Hi there,
I have a little experience doing non-ag related hacker-ish camps with teens, so could try to find some resources, send ideas your way about some ways to structure activities, examples of activities that worked well (or didn't). Contact me if it would be helpful - would be good to know what kind of fabrication and digital technology you'll have available, how long each day you plan to work with them, and what age/expereince levels you expect.
for a wonky perspective, this is also an interesting chapter: http://www.blikstein.com/paulo/documents/books/Blikstein-TravelsInTroyWi...
It spends some time with theory of working with young people and technology, but also has some more concrete advice and examples of how programs have been run.
Some general principles he describes include:
-- Identify a community-relevant generative theme (you already have this! sustainable agriculture, which can be refined through the student's research into local issues and brainstorming)
-- Depart from the community's technological culture and expertise as a basis for introducing new technologies
-- Use mixed-media approach, in which high and low-tech, on and off-screen, high and low-cost, and expressive as well as fabrication tools coexist
-- question taken-for-granted practices and mindsets (for example, about abilities and ways of treating of young people)
Another important component is bringing in experts and actual practitioners - farmers, designers, fabricators - to not just give feedback, but join in the work for at least parts.

Sounds like a great project. Would love to hear more about it as you move forward!
- Colin

A couple lines from the article that I am often reminded of when teaching and building stuff with young people:
-- "choosing a curriculum is an intrinsically political act"
-- 'I anticipated that the students would find this access to the equipment highly appealing. I was again wrong. Even though students seemed excited, some were afraid to use the equipment and these anxieties were only further stoked by some teachers."

hitching up the triangles

Thanks. In the upper left corner of a google doc there is a blue button that says "SHARE"

When you click it select HTML for Embedding or something of that sort and it generates an html code that you can copy -> paste into the page here. I had to resize it to width=1000 to make it look OK.