Designed by Huy Bui, Jon Schramm of HB Collaborative and Carlo Gómez de Llarena have designed a set of interlocking cedar boxes to create an automated terrarium. Called Plant-In City, they are currently running a Kickstarter Campaign to gather funding to finish prototypes and to ramp up production.
The system consists of three different cedar frames. The main frame is the “light frame”, and features LEDs mounted along the top rectangle. A “soil” frame a simple box that contains dirt along with sensors to monitor light, humidity and moisture. The last frame is the “water frame” and it is made up of a water tank along with tubing and a solenoid valve to control water flow. The sensors, lights, and valves are connected to an arduino that wirelessly connects to the Internet. Through either the Plant-It City website or mobile app, owners can monitor and control their frames via cosm.com‘s API. The sensors not only alert the owner to changes in the terrarium, but also are used to drive an audio and visual effects for in-person visitors of the system.