Researchers create robot that looks after plants

People might not need to look after their plants anymore as researchers have come up with an easier way by providing people with a robotic plant that can walk around and take care of itself.

Some people often forget to take proper care of their plants, by not giving enough water or by not keeping them in adequate sunlight. Chinese entrepreneur Sun Tianqi has found the solution for it by creating a plant-robot hybrid via his company ‘Vincross’ to carry the potted plant on its back and taking care of it.

The Verge described, the robot, named ‘HEXA’, moves towards the sunshine itself when needed.

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[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="480"] Credit: Sun Tianqi[/caption]

It spins to get sunlight on all sides.

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="480"] Credit: Sun Tianqi[/caption]

It then goes back to shade when it has had enough of the sunlight.

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="480"] Credit: Sun Tianqi[/caption]

When the plant needs water, it will get a bit grumpy to notify the owner.

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="480"] Credit: Sun Tianqi[/caption]

HEXA can also dance when it’s happy.

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="480"] Credit: Sun Tianqi[/caption]

The robot is also not just limited to take care of plants, it can also ‘play’ with a human upon tapping its exterior.

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="480"] Credit: Sun Tianqi[/caption]

Naming the project as ‘Sharing Human Technology with Plants’, Tianqi posted about this project in a forum, but did not clearly explain how the robot monitors its environment. However, the prototype created is only designed for small succulent plants, as per The Outline.

The roboticist expressed that his inspiration for creating the plant was after seeing a dead sunflower in shadows at an exhibition, to which he though t if it could have moved a bit, it wouldn’t have died. He wrote, “Plants are eternally, inexplicably passive. They have the fewest degrees of freedom among all the creatures in.”

“With a robotic rover base, plants can experience mobility and interaction. I do hope that this project can bring some inspiration to the relationship between technology and natural default settings,” Tianqi wrote.