Do you love nurturing plants, and think that you have quite the green thumb? Well, all that comes to nothing when you need to go away for a long vacation, leaving your plants to chance where their survival is concerned. Isn’t it time you let technology help you out? What we have here is the iRobot Create (the image on the right is not the real thing), where this robot will move plants around to look for the best spot for sun – while making sure your green friends have enough water as well.
Artist Aline Veillat and roboticist Stéphane Magnenat, with the latter hailing from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich, are working on the iRobot Create prototype. This design is a disc-shaped programmable bot manufactured by iRobot of Bedford, Massachusetts, being fully equipped with light and sound sensors. While the plant resides on top of the bot, it will rely on a probabilistic algorithm to plan its movement, while returning to a charging point whenever it starts to run low on juice.
Do you think the prototype will be successful enough to warrant a production unit that will find its way into homes all over the world? Just make sure you have paid all your utility bills beforehand though.