Growing plants indoors with no soil or requirement for sunlight, contained within climate controlled container with statistical output to the web via wireless internet connection.
The Fisher Innovation Automated Greenhouse is a experimental prototype contained hydroponic greenhouse with automated climate control for use in small spaces. The project contains two major platforms of development, the greenhouse containment unit as well as the greenhouse controller which are both completely open source and open to public contribution.
The Fisher Innovation Automated Greenhouse is a fully open project setup to be a platform for public experimentation and usage. Therefore we welcome anyone to help out with the project. There are many ways to help out with the project, some of which are listed below.
The best way to start helping out is to build your own greenhouse! Following the online documentation in this project wiki will aid you in getting your system up and running. Be sure to document you build process and submit issues and feature requests on the the project's GitHub page so your build and usage experience can better the project.
Share your experiences via the project issue tracker. Regardless of it is a bug, issue or feature request, use your GitHub account to leave a note about it there.
Helping out with the documentation is key to keeping everything and everyone up to date about the current status of the project. Fisher Innovation does it best, but public aid is always welcome.
The source code for the project lives as Arduino and web based code sets. Each of which are open to public development. If you feel like changing or adding something, fork the project and send a pull request with your change in a function specific branch.
This project has been created under the MIT License.
Hydroponics is a subset of hydroculture and is a method of growing plants using mineral nutrient solutions, in water, without soil. Wikipedia
The system currently used in the documented build is a hydroponic drip system. Although, there is also an element of a deep water culture system as well.
Electricity usage is mostly dependant on the lights you choose to put in your greenhouse. The current test model at Fisher Innovation uses four 28W CFL bulbs. The control system runs on a 12VDC 1Amp power supply. In short, the system doesn't use much electricity at all, around the same amount as a couple 60W light bulbs.
The current build parts list can be found below and prices will depend on availably in your geographic location. However, a basic system can be setup for no more then $250USD. The vast majority of the costs associated with this project is electronics for the greenhouse control system.
Feel free to contact me anytime by any of the mediums listed on the about page or via the contact form below.
Email: fisher.matt at gmail.com