Meet the Robotic Urban Farm System, RUFS for short

Oct 14, 2014 09:21 GMT  ·  By

Gardens are usually plots of land with plants growing in them, from trees and bushes to vegetables. However, there are other kinds of “gardens” like something called vertical farms, one of which we are going to show you today.

Admittedly, vertical farms aren't so amazing, although they do tend to cost an arm and a leg compared to that standard thing, both to buy and to maintain.

They also tend to be pretty messy, and thus, impractical for anyone living in the city, or any moderately sized town.

Even so, though, there are many vertical gardens in the world, and some of them can be really inventive, especially if they're custom built.

The RUFS DIY

RUFS is the abbreviated term of Robotic Urban Farm System, a vertical garden created by the folks at Better Living Through Robotics.

The reason it sticks out is because it's made of hardware goods you can find at any random store. Well, any random hardware store, that is.

A gutter plastic downspout can host the plants, for example, and the PVC pipe can play the role of the frame. Ultimately, as long as the parts can hold the soil and the water, everything goes.

Even the planters are normal plastic pots filled with clay, perlite (silica flakes) or coconut coir, collectively known as hydroponic media.

More importantly, the water you use in the “garden” is very efficiently managed because it runs in a closed loop, as everything draining through the bottom is reused. You'll still have to pour some more in from time to time, to compensate for the one that evaporates, but that's it.

Finally, to make the vertical garden look a bit fancier than just the scraped together random bits and pieces it really is, the inventors of the RUFS included an Arduino-based monitor that will water the plants for you and monitor the soil's pH levels. So we guess you don't have to personally do much after all. And if you have a Raspberry Pi, you can remotely use an app to care for the plants from afar.

How to get one of these RUFS systems

You can't. The whole point is to build one yourself if you're into this sort of thing. BLT Robotics has published the instructions so you only need to visit the page at the other end of the link to get started. It should eventually add some flavor to your food, based on what stuff you decide to harvest.

Update October 15, 2014: Added the announcement and Instructables links that had slipped through the cracks. Thanks to Paul for contributing.

Photo Gallery (2 Images)

RUFS vertical garden
RUFS vertical garden component chart
Open gallery