The objective of this project is to design and develop an autonomous robot that can detect and remove weeds from a garden.
Gardens are incredibly versatile. Whether a gardener wants tasty fresh grown vegetables, beautiful flowers, or added greenery to the city, gardens can accomplish it. One of the biggest problems of gardening is weeding. Weeds’ presence in gardens are practically guaranteed and they are a persistent annoyance. The Gardening Robot for Optimized Weeding (G.R.O.W.) is designed to help gardeners by removing weeds for them. The G.R.O.W. is especially useful for people with busy schedules or people with disabilities who have trouble getting low to the ground for extended periods of time.
This project will last approximately 8 months, from September 2024 to April 2025. The project team will take several steps to complete this project:
Research and design (~4 months, September 2024 - December 2024)
The project team will conduct research before designing the robot. Research includes looking at existing gardening robots, learning about machine learning, and comparing various hardware components, such as which wheels and arduino to buy.
Building the Robot (~2 months, January 2025 - February 2025)
The project team will actively build the robot based on the design created from the previous step. This includes connecting the hardware components, coding the software components, and training the robot.
Testing and Finalizing the Robot (~2 months, March 2025 - April 2025)
The project team will test and debug the robot. The project team will conduct various tests to ensure the robot has no major issues and meets all of the objectives. Once the robot is finalized, the team will present the robot at the Innovation Expo in April 2025.
The project team expects the robot to meet several objectives:
Accurately identify, drive towards, and remove weeds
Navigate through the garden while avoiding obstacles and leaving the plants unharmed
Currently, the project team estimates the cost to be several hundred dollars. The project team is currently looking at available robots at school, so this number will fluctuate depending on whether the school robots and/or robot parts are suitable for the needs of the project team.