[Diana in Wisconsin]

I slightly altered the title; it didn't make sense as:

"Robotic gardening: MIT course creates robot-tending tomatoes"

Sounds like the TOMATOES are tending the ROBOTS. Duh. Like that would ever happen.

Or would it...? *Cue 'Twilight Zone' Theme* ;)

[Diana in Wisconsin]

In the middle of MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab (CSAIL) sits a platform of fake grass with tomato plants nestled in terra cotta pots, growing under the light of an artificial sun. But this urban, indoor garden has a twist: the caretakers of the plants are entirely robotic.

[rednesss]

Move over Hector, here comes HAL. Not a moment too soon either, HAL isn’t capable of self replicating 19 anchor computers.

[JRandomFreeper]

the plants themselves are equipped with local soil sensing, networking and computation

Those plants are smarter than my ex-brother-in-law. MUCH smarter.

The writing for this story was horrible.

/johnny

[GeronL]

we don’t need no stinkin illegals.

[Charles Martel]

[Red_Devil 232]

Gardening Ping

[Brilliant]

Just doing the jobs that Mexicans won’t do.

[mamelukesabre]

Reminds me of a dream I once had...

I dreamed I visited an indoor orchard from the future. Each tree was planted in it’s own giant pot. The pots were arranged on shelves and were picked up and placed on conveyor belts when it was time to harvest the fruit. Then the tree and pot were put back into their assigned shelf once the fruit was harvested. The pots weren’t actually pots. They were pressure vessels sealed around the trunk of the tree with rubber gaskets. The inside of the pot was pressurized liquid(hydroponics, sort of). This was to speed up the nutrient and water uptake by the roots. THere were connections for hoses on the pots to add nutrients and to maintain the pressure.

Each plant was actually a frankenstein combination of 3 different plants. One genetically engineered for a superior root system, one genetically engineered for fruit production, and one genetically engineered for leaf production and photosynthesis.

Once each leaf was fully grown it was coated by a light emitting film, and sensors embedded to monitor photosynthesis and moisture loss. The data was used to calculate the pressure and nutrient concentrations of the pressure vessel.

All done automatically.

[Malsua]

Yeah, and in a few thousands years, it turns into a goofy square thing called BOX and keeps saying "Fish, Plankton, Sea Greens and Proteins from the sea. Fresh from harvest day" and sequestering nubile young escapees from the communists hell habitat Sanctuary into big ice blocks. It freezes everything for some future use, including birds and then acts like they're alive. In other words, it becomes our new overlord.(unless you have a pistol, then you can take it out).