The Play Coalition created Plantbot, a servo powered planter. The idea is that the planter continuously tracks the sun, ensuring that the plant get maximal sunlight.

My initial impression was that this was a really cool idea, but when I started thinking about it, it seems like yet another one of those ideas that are utterly impractical. I mean, do you really want furniture that constantly moves? Well I guess a dog is kind of like that, but it doesn’t immediately back to the same place. In all honesty though, that’s an engineering problem. An accelerometer to detect pickup and not move for some time after being placed back down. I guess the other thing is having it move back to its original position each morning. Well, I guess that’s just a search pattern. So, I guess none of this is that big of a problem.

Adafruit links to Peter Sand‘s Fast Planting. (Alas, the video is broken.) Fast Planting is a track mounted robot for tending an herb garden. The cursor moves across and grabs interchangeable tool heads to plant, water, and trim the plants. Completely over engineered. ;)