The Farm Hack River of Activity

In 50 characters or less...	Posted by	Post date	Last comment	Number of Comments
Black Soldier Fly - Reproduction Then and Now	adriannetraub	Thursday, December 19, 2013 - 11:47am	Thursday, December 19, 2013 - 11:47am	0
What would farmers like to see in a tool like this?	Bill	Monday, December 16, 2013 - 4:06pm	Tuesday, February 25, 2014 - 10:02pm	23
Need "new posts" listing	Joel_BC	Friday, December 13, 2013 - 11:04am	Monday, October 3, 2016 - 3:48pm	5
plan for pedalpower rootwasher	Cocopanache	Thursday, December 12, 2013 - 2:38am	Sunday, February 15, 2015 - 3:51pm	1
Why so little activity here?	Joel_BC	Wednesday, December 11, 2013 - 1:13pm	Wednesday, December 11, 2013 - 2:29pm	1
Solar power capability? Automatic alerts?	Bill	Monday, December 9, 2013 - 1:17pm	Tuesday, January 28, 2014 - 1:36pm	2
What Open Enterprise Budgets do you want?!?	ethanappleseed	Monday, December 2, 2013 - 1:38pm	Saturday, December 7, 2013 - 7:51am	1
Handheld plant health tool, open beta	gbathree	Saturday, November 23, 2013 - 9:42am	Saturday, November 23, 2013 - 2:52pm	1
Walking transplanter	mattbatt	Wednesday, November 20, 2013 - 3:15pm	Wednesday, November 20, 2013 - 6:11pm	2
Solar back	Trip3980	Tuesday, November 19, 2013 - 1:29am	Tuesday, November 19, 2013 - 1:29am	0

Submitted by mostlyiguessso on Mon, 04/30/2012 - 5:09pm

There was some talk about the difficulty determining distance within this network. If there is triangulation from three known points it is direction and not distance that's needed to calculate position. How could this be achieved?

Submitted by Todd Edward Jones on Mon, 04/30/2012 - 2:38pm

My name is Todd Jones. I grew up gardening in backyards throughout Elmhurst. I've spent some time working on farms but I don't have any experience producing food at scale. Last year I began to offer a personal farming service to homeowners in the western suburbs of Chicago (http://everylastmorsel.tumblr.com/). That concept has since evolved into a tech startup (http://everylastmorsel.com/). Our grand plan is to map food production across the United States and abroad, but we're starting with urban farms and community gardens, specifically those in the Windy City. We'll be launching a Kickstarter campaign soon and I'm hopeful that the site will be ready to launch in May. With a little luck, and a whole lotta help from the farming community, we'd like to scale-up/adapt these tools for use on rural farms. If I can be of any help to you I hope you'll let me know. Drop me a line any time. Thanks for lending me your attention.

Submitted by dorn on Mon, 04/30/2012 - 1:16pm

Thank you so much for your tour and posting this information - do you think that you might be able to start a tool wiki for the microhydro systems? I think it would be a good repository for folks starting out on projects - I think I mentioned that I think that micro hydro coupled with a gassifier(or whatever other power source is abundant on site) powered water pump(direct drive or electric) might be a way to even out power storage/generation needs in a farm application - ie. water stored in large farm cistern used to store excess power from generator with microhydro to generate on-demand power when needed. I am thinking about hill side storage ponds etc. which could also double for irrigation and animal watering storage. I would love to work up some numbers on a few case studies...

Submitted by andysmiles on Mon, 04/30/2012 - 9:25am

A quick addition to remember safety! Always wear safety glasses, ear protection, gloves, respirator, etc when appropriate

Submitted by R.J. Steinert on Mon, 04/30/2012 - 12:14am

Inspired by our conversations in this group and from past conversations on Fido I whipped up a few diagrams to show what I think might make sense as the logical progression of the architecture of a system where we incorporate predictive modeling into the management of a greenhouse. I'll write up more on this in an idea post on the Fido forum sometime soon.

Submitted by jbd on Sat, 04/28/2012 - 9:10pm

There should be a minimum of 3 anchor points; more are allowed for scaling up. The three anchor points provide for triangulation to determine the location of "slaves". The radio technology being used is likely to be Zigbee (because it is more tolerant of errors; albeit with lower bandwidth than wifi or cellular).

The "slaves" (need a better word) are also zigbee enabled and can communicate with the anchor points to transfer data (such as location, attached peripherals, internal data).

The anchor points can be BeagleBone devices, which can use an Internet connection to communicate with and "optional" central server. That Internet connection can be (for example) Wifi, LAN, 4G, ...

Submitted by R.J. Steinert on Sat, 04/28/2012 - 8:24am

Inspired by the discussions in this group, I created a presentation on how to use forums and wikis to collaboratively design solutions. It's still in draft form and any suggestions would be much appreciated :).

Submitted by brshute on Fri, 04/27/2012 - 8:55pm

Thanks a lot for scanning and posting these! I like the tool you used to display the images.

Submitted by leisa on Fri, 04/27/2012 - 12:03pm

I'm a maker type and brand new to farming.

I have an electrical engineering degree, but have been doing internet work for so long I'm very rusty. I worked in Silicon Valley for a long time, then took a break in New Orleans where I was involved in starting up the hackerspace Gumbo Labs and got back to doing some electronics and microprocessor work. My partner & I have just bought a house in North Hero, VT on 10 acres used primarily for clover. We would like to turn it into a small farm/homestead. Neither of us have any background so very much in the ramping up the learning stage of this adventure. Looking forward to finding ways to contribute to this space.

Submitted by dorn on Tue, 04/24/2012 - 2:43pm

There was a recent tool posting of just such a machine -http://www.farmhack.net/tools/small-scale-thresher

Here is a link to another one

Submitted by dorn on Mon, 04/23/2012 - 2:27am

To get things started a little - here is a 3D warehouse collection that I put together quickly with some sample models and here are several of the models and collections linked individually. Some of these are more than components, but may have detail that would help in building a new project.

Collection of bobcat equipment

General farm collection

three point hitch log splitter

Submitted by dorn on Mon, 04/23/2012 - 1:23am

I think what the OSE folks are doing is great, but the documentation is largely geared toward their own projects. Last I looked they had CAD files for the pulverizer, earth press and tractor. I will have to check it out again to see if there are more. It would certainly be great to cross pollinate. What I would like to see that hasn't been created yet, is a repository for universal sketchup components which could be used when designing, say, a new tool bar or three point hitch attachments etc. For example, I know Ben Shute has an Allis G cultivating tractor modeled already. If that were in a library, it could be used as the basis for designing not only new implements (like low cost tine weeders, finger weeders etc). I think that some of the universal hitches (bob cat/john deere/triangle/3ph) might also be a good place to start. Here is an example of a good library component The nice thing is that if we have CAD files we can import to sketchup and vice versa. I think the good thing about standardizing on sketchup right now would be that it is free and easy to use.

Submitted by 1234nick5678@gm... on Sun, 04/22/2012 - 4:55pm

Has anyone had a chance to check out or connect with the Open Source Ecology group who are building the "Global Village Construction Set." I think they have CAD drawings of many very useful farming tools, and might be interested in a project like this.

You can find them here; http://opensourceecology.org/

Submitted by Louis on Sat, 04/21/2012 - 4:19pm

@Ben: I've included some extra explanations in the preparation steps of our build process. Feel free to write any critiques here or edit/reword as you see fit. And let me know if you have more questions or ideas of things that could still need explaining (just make sure it's not already on the to-do list at the bottom of the page)

Also, I've running Fido with a logic shifter currently and the communication runs a lot more reliably now. I will be running Fido all week and will hopefully have a fairly stable program ready for this weekend!

Submitted by R.J. Steinert on Sat, 04/21/2012 - 1:32pm

Finally got around to fixing this. Thanks again for catching it.

Submitted by dorn on Thu, 04/19/2012 - 2:18pm

I am thinking that for now I might move this type of post over to a floating wiki just to test the concept and until we have another place to put it. I think it would be good to encourage this type of wiki post, but as I mentioned before if we have too many of these types it dilutes the physical tool meta data model.

I do think it is a good conversation to have. Documents and templates I think could follow the same development pattern as they move from concept to a robust and well documented template - so our model does not have to be tweaked much, but just run in parallel, just as you say above. I think that will be a valuable feature...thanks again for all the great work!

Submitted by R.J. Steinert on Thu, 04/19/2012 - 12:48pm

Agreed. At the moment we can attach a forum and wiki to Tool entities but my long term development goal is to be able to attach forum and wikis to other types of entities. Above you mention two types of possible entities, business document and concepts. The reason why business documents don't work well as tools is because they don't fit the meta data model that we are using with Tools, ie. the stages of a business document does not necessarily fit Concept->Prototype->DIY->Commercial. Perhaps the Tool entity would be better defined as the "Physical Tool" entity.

On this site, right now, we can easily define new entity types and add meta data models. The trick is upon creating an instance of an entity type, also create an associated wiki/forum and attach them visually to the entity's page. We also need to be able to define on a per entity type basis, when a forum is created, where it should be placed in the Forum structure. It's a simple concept and I can reuse much of the work done on the Tool entity type but it's still 3 or 4 days of work. The nice thing about it is that as soon as that work is done then we can go wild with new entity types knowing they'll have attached forums and wikis.

Submitted by rachelatNOFANY on Wed, 04/18/2012 - 2:32pm

I hear from an architect that you've used all the right words to entice architecture students. What about University of Buffalo? I'd definitely be interested in helping this happen.

Submitted by R.J. Steinert on Wed, 04/18/2012 - 9:18am

I totally know your farm is named Hearty Roots Farm yet I typed Healthy Roots :P

Submitted by dorn on Wed, 04/18/2012 - 7:21am

The library could start out as simply a list of links to good collections in the 3D warehouse, or to individual models. Linking to models would also address the issue of not being able to upload sketchup files to the tool wikis yet.

Submitted by dorn on Wed, 04/18/2012 - 7:07am

Possibly both - a repository of components that would be relevant to building farm tools. Just like you have bins of stuff at the hardware store. If you are working within sketchup it would be awkward to go to individual tool pages, but I think that tool pages should definitely list relevant sketchup models right on the page as well. This could be managed by using a collection within the 3d Warehouse which would make it more publicly accessible. An example of the type of collection we might build is here

Submitted by brshute on Wed, 04/18/2012 - 12:22am

Great photos RJ! (btw you were at HEARTY Roots Farm not Healthy Roots)

To answer the questions:

What did you find most challenging about the build process?

I was worried the the actual soldering of the circuit board would be challenging, and that I would mess something up. It turned out to be no problem and was actually fun. I found it difficult to completely understand the nuances of the circuitry and why I was soldering what things where-- but as long as there are clear diagrams, the farmer can choose whether or not to pursue understanding the theory, but still end up with a working tool.

What do you think other farmers will find challenging about the build process?

For farmers who are totally unfamiliar with circuitboards, soldering, computer code, etc. there might need to be some links to basic tutorials that can be consulted before jumping into the project. Or just more thorough explanation of some of the steps in the how-to-- like, most farmers probably will not understand what the purpose of "Downloading Arduino IDE and libraries" is without further explanation.

Submitted by R.J. Steinert on Tue, 04/17/2012 - 11:53pm

Hi Dorn. Are you thinking that it would be useful to see a list of all of the sketch up models attached to Tool Wikis on a separate page?

Submitted by R.J. Steinert on Tue, 04/17/2012 - 9:45pm

Could you add the above syntax to the Quick Tips?

Good idea.

Any objection to using html color in forum posts?

Nope. No objections. I think the general consensus on the web is that color can be useful if used in a predictable way. It's when people start using color differently that it makes it hard to understand.

Submitted by dorn on Tue, 04/17/2012 - 9:32pm

Thanks - I think this is a helpful approach. I would maybe suggest we try going without color at first, and see what design folks would like to to do later. Could you add the above syntax to the Quick Tips? Any objection to using html color in forum posts?

Submitted by R.J. Steinert on Tue, 04/17/2012 - 9:00pm

I can also add some code to this website to make sure that every time pound signs are used for sectioning content that they get a specific color of our choosing.

Submitted by R.J. Steinert on Tue, 04/17/2012 - 8:57pm

One advantage of using "#" to mark off headings is you can indicate subheadings using "##" and even deeper using "###".

This:

# 1 - Section 1
Some text.

## 1.1 - Subsection 1
Some text.

## 1.2 - Subsection 2
Some text.

### 1.2.1 - Sub-Subsection 1
Some text.

### 1.2.2 - Sub-Subsection 2

# 2 - Section 2
Some text.

## 2.1 - Subsection 1

And on and on....

Turns into this:

1 - Section 1

Some text.

1.1 - Subsection 1

Some text.

1.2 - Subsection 2

Some text.

1.2.1 - Sub-Subsection 1

Some text.

1.2.2 - Sub-Subsection 2

2 - Section 2

Some text.

2.1 - Subsection 1

And on and on....

Submitted by dorn on Tue, 04/17/2012 - 8:29pm

I agree that the html kind of makes editing a little more complex to edit, but I didn't think it would be too bad. Happy to back it off to other means to make the headers pop out a bit, and I agree we should work towards a standard look too. What do others think about colored section headings?

The difference in editing is

Header Text

Submitted by R.J. Steinert on Tue, 04/17/2012 - 6:17pm

could we make the tool template tool a "sticky" so that it is always at the top of the tool list?

I think so. I'll look into it.

Should this post go over to the web site ideas forum?

I think over here works well.

Submitted by Louis on Tue, 04/17/2012 - 5:15pm

Awesome RJ - I like the questions!

What is the biggest challenge you are currently facing with the current Fido design?

Now that the code has been slimmed down to actually fit onto the Arduino, my biggest challenge is the cell phone. The Arduino and the cellphone talk at different voltages and I think that that is the origin of the current inconsistencies in behavior.

What do you think your next two steps will be developing the design for Fido?

Currently, a voltage divider brings the Arduino's 5V down to 3.3V. This does the trick but I think makes the device very fickle. I am going to try to do the same connection with a chip called a logic shifter instead and see if that resolves the issue. If it fails, then I'll know that there is a fundamental issue in the library I wrote for the cell phone and I will try tweaking that again

The Farm Hack River of Activity

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Stream of Forum Comments

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