Rhona Watson, her husband John, and I spent most of the day at Extension today. At the end of this, the second day of work assembling Farmbot, I’m thrilled at the progress we have made so far.
We adjusted the tracks, rollers, belts, and motor so the end-to-end motion (that’s the x axis for all of you who speak robot) is nice and smooth.
We attached the cross beam and its supporting columns to those rollers. Farmbot rides from side to side over the bed (that’s the y axis) on the cross beam. Another motor and belt.
And we also attached to the cross beam the screw drive and motor that raise and lower Farmbot in relation to the bed (you guessed it – that’s the z axis).
Nearly finished, you say? Well, not really. The next step gets very important, very tedious, and let’s just say it, hard. We’re about to begin installing and connecting all the tubes, wires, and cables that translate our direction – as in go plant these seeds – into all the movements needed to respond to that direction. Along the way, we’ll be connecting and installing a computer and what look to be about 146 separate circuit boards.
We spent several minutes today looking for a camera before figuring out that it looks like this, and is about an inch and a half long.
We’ve adjourned so we can all research the many steps that make up the important work that lies ahead. We’re hoping to reconvene on Good Friday to continue.
Lee Borden
