The Farm Hack River of Activity
Stream of Forum Topics
| In 50 characters or less... | Posted by | Post date | Last comment | Number of Comments | # of Comments new to you | |
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EDYN smart garden | agrarian trust | Friday, July 25, 2014 - 1:33pm | Monday, January 8, 2018 - 5:59pm | 4 | |
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NH-RAT/NE-UAV-UG Meetup | mattwallhead | Wednesday, July 23, 2014 - 10:35am | Wednesday, July 23, 2014 - 10:35am | 0 | |
| Best bang for the buck sensor data collection mode | Matthew | Saturday, July 19, 2014 - 4:18pm | Tuesday, September 9, 2014 - 12:41pm | 3 | ||
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Overview | m.stenta | Thursday, July 17, 2014 - 11:20am | Wednesday, May 20, 2015 - 4:48pm | 2 | |
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Oooooh I get it now | R.J. Steinert | Tuesday, July 15, 2014 - 12:35am | Tuesday, July 15, 2014 - 12:35am | 0 | |
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Comment on DIY drum dibbler presentation | Joel_BC | Monday, July 14, 2014 - 8:06pm | Thursday, August 7, 2014 - 2:25pm | 8 | |
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Datalogger | johncrane1 | Thursday, July 3, 2014 - 7:38pm | Saturday, October 18, 2014 - 8:51am | 6 | |
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A $20 DIY datalogger ( with waterproof housing ) | EdMallon | Thursday, July 3, 2014 - 6:51pm | Thursday, July 3, 2014 - 6:51pm | 0 | |
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Sending WiFi to the other side of the farm for under $200, Part 1 | R.J. Steinert | Sunday, June 29, 2014 - 3:03pm | Sunday, March 22, 2015 - 12:34pm | 5 | |
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Seperate out Fido 2.0 | Louis | Saturday, June 28, 2014 - 9:00pm | Sunday, June 29, 2014 - 3:32pm | 3 |
Hi Bill,
I sympathize with the amount of work it takes to replace real data with sample data. A program is often hard to understand without some sample data running through it.
Good luck with getting it ready!
- RJ
Hi RJ,
Right now what I'm working with is built around our farm's data, or at least includes some approximations of real data for testing. I just asked permission to share that, so we'll see. Meanwhile, I'm working on making a blank template with protected formulas for other people to use, but I keep making changes to the original and that's slowing me down. Either way, I'll try to have something pretty soon that you can look at. The biggest thing missing right now is how to handle materials costs. Anyway, you'll see what I mean. I'll be in touch.
That should be doable. What's your farm called, and where are you? So far the most functional version of the tool I have is one built around some of our data in MS Excel. I am in the process of turning that into a blank template, but the thing keeps evolving and that slows me down. Do you have a recent version of Excel? I'm also working on modifying it to work in Google Sheets; that way it will not require expensive MS software and it will be cloud-based. The features of Sheets are somewhat limited, though, so that conversion is slow going, too.
Any idea why things got a lot "busier" in October? Also, there is a precipitous drop in December - I think; could this be the result of a DDOS attack? (I've had problems accessing the site from time to time over the past two weeks.)
Some more Photos from World Maker Faire 2013 - some taken with telescoping fibreglass pole from above since it was too gusty for kites and too windy for a balloon shot.
Re: my OP, above... I'll just add that the thread I mentioned (from Do-It-Yourself forum, in SufficientSelf.com open forums) has attracted over 24,000 views now (and still climbing).
Please consider posting something about your relevant projects there. Include pics.
Hi Bill, This tool sounds cool, you must be an Excel wizard! I used to consider myself one, even now that I'm an experienced programmer, building a quick financial model in Excel is amazingly fast. Building these kinds of tools in Excel is cool because the "source code" is modifiable right in front of the user. That's also the scary part for folks who don't know Excel, it's easy to break it when someone places a value where a function used to live. The approach is a great fit for those comfortable with Excel and maybe that's what the tool should focus on for now. Excel is quick to program, Apps are a bit more rigid so having a nice Excel program nailed down could count as the prototype for an App where usability could be improved. Are you planning on sharing the document? I could make some suggestions if I had the document on hand.
bill I would love to try this tool out next year. We grow about 5 acres of mixed veggies with another couple acres in row crops of potatoes, garlic, and winter squash. we are are crew of 5 full time and we sell to market and CSA. I would love to see this tool in action.
Dorn, thanks. Okay, my fault for not realizing that.
But could I make one small suggestion - which I feel would make the site slightly more user friendly?
Put a "Recent Posts" or "Newer Posts" button or list right on the Talk/Conversations page. http://farmhack.net/forums/farm-hack-talk The reason I suggest this is because some people who are expecially interested in dialogue with other members may have (as I did) bookmarked the "Conversations" page itself. So unlike on many other forums, here you can not simply go to the discussion page and find listings for the newest posts.
I appreciate your considering this idea, Dorn. Thanks again.
Hi Joel
You can see the most recent web activity including forums, open shop and tool activity on the home page - just scroll down a bit to see the what is going on. The subscription function on tools and forum should alert you to new content by e-mail. Most of the recent activity has been in the tools section for example...
This has been an item of considerable off-line dialog and the tech team and board is putting together a plan to both make it easier to get started and contribute, but also to make navigation and linkages between tools, events, people, organizations and related discussions be clearer and make more sense. We are all involved in building a prototype together for a better way to collaborate on open source projects - and all participation or lack of participation help tell a story about what is working and what needs to be revisited. I look forward to being able to bring these new features out to the community in the coming months. Thank you for your comments and contributions!
I'll love to understand more the budgeting of theses Crops/Entreprises: - Mixed Orchards - Food Forests - Mushrooms cultivation - Small scale vegetables (CSA on about 2.5 acres)
Hi RJ, unlike a lot of the tools on Farmhack, we are a web tool and we are trying to get an idea of where to focus our attention and energy. We listed our site here because we wanted to stimulate the conversation and see if others would want to add any insight or at least we felt it was valuable to show that there are different types of tools with hopes that other farm related web tools would continue to pop up.
I have seen a number of hugelkultur beds, functioning well.
The person who has the most expertise and brilliance in this realm is James (Jim) Kovaleski, up in Maine near Scythe Supply. He builds incredible hugel mounds using only a scythe and a hand-saw. He sees 400+% increases in squash yields when planted in his beds - amazing!
It would be great to get a tool wiki posted for this tool!
It seems like a logical extension to some of the other environmental sensors that Apitronics http://apitronics.com/ is developing, along with the aerial imagery tools that are also evolving so rapidly http://farmhack.net/tools/ifarm-imaging-agricultural-research-and-manage....
It is a Japanese paper pot transplanter that was demonstrated at the Farm Hack Ithaca
Here is another video of it in action...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMSpN0E8_H8
Does anyone know were I can get information about the transplanter in the main video in the home page? You will see it a about 1:00. It is like a two wheel cart she is pulling behind herself planting lettuce. I couldn't find anything in the tools sections. Really want to know what it is called and how it works.
Hi there. I built a 10x10 strawbale cooler for under $2000 (including a metal roof and used coolbot), and have been using it for a year and half now, and it works great. A 10x10 pre-fab cooler is at least $5000, so strawbale is a really economical, efficient and fun way to go. I just put together a poster describing it for the Farm Hack event in Davis yesterday and will be posting it up on this site as soon as I figure how.
Hi Katrina
My company, Apitronics, is an open-source platform for deploying wireless sensor and automation networks on farms. We are currently manufacturing our base unit, the Bee, a battery powered, solar rechargeable, wireless device, and our Weather Plug, which enables the Bee to become a weather station.
It's possible that we could come up with an application that we could collaborate on. Things we'd like to manufacture next are controllers for irrigation, greenhouse, aquaponic, what have you. We're designing our systems to communicate between nodes and to leverage the benefit of having everything networked. With a weather station AND a greenhouse controller, you could start coming up with some really interesting automation. Is it "too hot" but almost night fall and a cold night is coming up? A simple thermostat might release that heat, while a networked system could easily have the intelligence to capture that heat for the night.
Anyway, that's just an idea. We basically have a core of any wireless system and have designed everything to make it easy to prototype new ideas. So we could try out just about anything for this competition. We're already open-source and would have no problem maintaing that with you :)
--Louis
louis@apitronics.com
Hi Bill, It looks like the user Albert Rogers disabled their profile and when logged in users go to disabled profiles they are then forwarded to their own profile. For example, when I go to Albert Rogers' profile I am forwarded to my own profile. -RJ
Albert: I am Bill Spurlock, farm hack user Sunny Slope Orchard. I happened to notice that when I click on your name in this forum MY user profile came up, even though the URL says "http://farmhack.net/users/albert-rogers"
Somehow your profile got replaced by mine.
I have been working with some of the folks at the Cornell Soil Health Lab on this. There has been some discussion about how to incorporate low cost indicators into the soil test. There are several options currently being explored. Dan Moebius Clune, who is now working on some of the new indicators for the Cornell soil health test ( http://soilhealth.cals.cornell.edu/ ) just finished his doctorate looking at the exchange of nitrogen for energy that happens at the plant root level. The exchange is facilitated through the microryza community. He was focusing on the bean and corn interaction, but the microryza community is key in other legume non-legume exchanges. I know there is also work on how various cover crops effect this community positively or negatively - for example many of the brasicas like canola and mustard are very hard on microryza community. I certainly agree that understanding these systems are key to water management, root health, and resilient agriculture in general.
I saw a Samet's TED talk and then I read one of his mushroom books and I'm hooked. I just haven't had an opportunity to experiment and research further. I'm working on a business that makes sensor networks for farms though so using those to manage mushroom cultures sounds intriguing to me.
Sounds similar to the straw bale raised bed technique. We tried it this year as a trial and it worked really well for some crops. We found that the nitrogen saturation with the high carbon content of the bales is pretty important. We are going to try a bit more on a field scale next year.
http://www.notechmagazine.com/2012/12/straw-bale-gardening.html
I'm interested in this.
You started building design version #2 on 08/21/13. Where are the links to pics & plans, and discussion of how the prototype has worked out in trials?
There has been some discussion about applying some of this same technology to a scratchbuilt cultivating tractor which could incorporate the arduino based ardu-rover autopilot http://rover.ardupilot.com/ -
Some previous related forum posts for prone harvesters etc. are here http://farmhack.net/forums/check-out-finnish-companys-prone-vehicle
and there was a sketchup started about a universal electric tool carrier platform from the Ithaca Farm Hack which can be found here http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/details?mid=22b6ea0fa12dac47d8bcb80d2a176be0
Ready, willing, and able to model this for you! Would love to see some plan drawings. I have heard that when repurposing a shipping container you have to pay close attention to ventilation. A building made of cinderblocks can "breathe" but those containers can't. Mold can become an issue. Do commercial kitchen codes call for specific ventilation?
I am renovating a building to include a small cheesemaking room, which would need to adhere to commercial kitchen standards, plus a few other details. In addition to the cheeseroom we will need an aging room, and my thought was to bury a container underground, add in a humidifier and call it good but I am now rethinking the ventilation issue.
It WOULD be great to have a sketchup model of the layout. Enclosed is a link to some models that might be helpful to start. I expect if the 2D plans were posted someone would step up to model it...
1) a sketchup model of the standard shipping container
http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/details?mid=9f562916ca7e43eceb7d6...
2) The link to the Farm hack sketchup model library with components that might be helpful
http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/cldetails?mid=cc34dd5b3d6df3291e3...
Would it be possible to get plans/details on this project? I work at a non-profit, educational urban farm in Little Rock and we could really use something just like this.
Lu, Y'all,
A couple thoughts.
I think it should be possible, as you are suggesting Lu, to devise a removable way to mount the implement triangles. It might end up being a different technique for each implement. I like your idea for the bolt-on mounting studs. I'll bet we could design and tailor them on the spot, given an implement.
Lu, your PDF omits the plate brace near the top of the implement triangle. This triangle is probably not strong enough without it unless the triangle is solidly bolted or permanently welded to the implement. But also, it is a component of the latching mechanism pictured in the first photos. So that leads me to...
The original French PDF shows, in an inset photo on the first page, a spring loaded latch on the male/tractor side triangle that locks into the implement triangle. The drawings in the rest of the article don't show this, but instead show a bolt-on top retaining plate that keeps the two latched together. Omitting this would allow the implement to get bumped off the tractor triangle. Hitting a pothole on the street while transporting the implement could conceivably drop the implement in the street. The bolt on thingy in the drawings is a get-off-the-tractor-to-secure-it item, and looks like a part that needs a wrench and will get rusty, hassle-ish, left behind, lost. I think we could make a spring catch that would work from the tractor seat with a pull cord. Attached is a (crude) drawing of how this might be done (the drawing is upside down from the orientation it would be installed in). Could be positioned and welded on as/where needed.
I think it worth reminding people who are coming to make a triangle mount for themselves to:
Bring your target implement to the build-in. Otherwise (as Lu suggests) bring the exact dimensions, layout and spacing of the mounting points on your implement so we can plan for how you will attach the triangle to the implement when you get back to the farm. If you are going to permanently mount the triangle on your implement you won't be able to pick up the implement without the tractor-side triangle. Remember to note if the target tractor is category I or II (or III ?) Decide if you want to build the sliding upper attachment to allow the implement to "float", as shown in the French PDF.Lu: I can bring a 110v MIG (sans gas) with a small spool of flux core, a couple angle grinders ... what else would be useful? Any small bits of stock?
Cheers, Brian