I think people fail to appreciate how difficult solar is to do right from a mechanical engineering standpoint. Those arrays have a HUGE wind cross section, and you need to handle the forces correctly. If you don't, people can end up dead quickly.
freaklabs5:13 PM
We initially started with things like soil moisture sensing. FYI, my specialty is wireles ssensor networks and I love collecting data
nerd.king joined the room.5:14 PM
freaklabs5:14 PM
What I learned from that was soil moisture is hard to measure accurately and you actually don't need that much precision. Many times you can eyeball it.
freaklabs5:14 PM
truthfully a lot of the sensors and IoT that companies are trying to sell to farmers aren't very useful, especially if they go out in the field.
sadhana5:15 PM
I think with food computers its pretty good to zero in on the right chemical balances through rigorously tested results. Its hard to know exactly whats in organic fertilizer, that can create issues with consistency.
nerd.king5:15 PM
Have you thought about small scale robotics? We have a lot of Beyond Organic farmers in central Virginia and I have been working with a couple to apply robotics to some of their labor intensive tasks.
enatalio5:15 PM
@freaklabs > What's your ultimate vision for the data?
sadhana5:15 PM
Dirt varies quite a bit
freaklabs5:15 PM
for example, soil moisture sensors that get put in the soil are almost useless. the reason is the farmer needs to be able to till the soil after the crop is harvested. that means they have to pull up all those expensive sensors before they till. it adds more labor which is a no-no to farmers who are already labor constrained
matthewkleinmann5:15 PM
My solar is very small. One building is 100W and the other is under that. If I need real power like when I am building I will drag a generator out. I also have my home brew CO2 powered framing nail gun.
nerd.king5:16 PM
Should you be targeting no till operations then?
enatalio5:16 PM
@freaklabs > How about a drone with infrared. No need for physical sensors.
freaklabs5:16 PM
@sadhana : we invited one of the guys from MIT Media Lab to give a talk on food computers. it was interesting, but the final result is he's also interested in field growing.
matthewkleinmann5:17 PM
@Freaklabs if you are growing things in the ground, do you have an irrigation system? If you don't what is the point of monitoring the soil moisture unless you have a means of controlling it
@freaklabs - Doesn't that just scream for a tiller that can sample and measure the soil on the fly? And perhaps log the data along with GPS data as it works the rows?
freaklabs5:17 PM
@sadhana : I think soil-less and soil growing are two techniques of growing. we have no bias actualy and are experimenting with hydro as well as mist growing, and field growing
sadhana5:17 PM
It helps food computers to have field farming data to replicate the soil conditions, makes sense
freaklabs5:18 PM
@Dan Maloney : that's what the john deere tractors do, and I think that would be an interesting open source technology. We mainly owrk with indie farmers and if you look at their technology needs like Maslow's hierarchy of needs, many of them are not even on the bottom rung of hte ladder
matthewkleinmann5:18 PM
Again, you can measure and log but if you have no means of control it is kind of pointless, IMHO.
Jim Tittsler joined the room.5:18 PM
freaklabs5:19 PM
From working with indie farmers, although its nice to have technology for automation, they actually need technology to generate revenue. basically many of them need help with basic business principles like marketing
matthewkleinmann5:19 PM
If you can afford anything green and yellow you are not here (smile)
freaklabs5:20 PM
we run python workshops and arduino workshops, but the most popular are media arts, ie: photoshop and video editing...
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IOT is such a part of the technology which involves in any of the field in the world. Just like that this is also one. You can also go through https://errorcode0x.com/fixed-error-code-2000-0151/ for more information.