Jekyll2020-09-16T02:02:40+00:00https://growver.com/feed.xmlThe Growver ProjectGrowver is an outdoor robot for lawn irrigation and other outdoor use. The Growver platform is simple, easy to build and modify and can carry a lot of water or other stuff. It's also Open Source.Growver 2020 is live2020-01-25T16:01:20+00:002020-01-25T16:01:20+00:00https://growver.com/growver/2020/robot/opensource/2020/01/25/growver-2020-live<p>After a series of weekends and light nights, the Growver 2020 project is live and public. Growver is a fun project directed at solving a real problem.</p>
<p>I hope the information on this site is useful for your project and of course any contributions to the Growver design are appreciated. While I hope to find time to get Growver 2020 full autonomous, using improvements to earlier navigation designs, it’d be great to have some help with this.</p>
<p><em>Jon Guy</em></p>After a series of weekends and light nights, the Growver 2020 project is live and public. Growver is a fun project directed at solving a real problem.Growver 2020 Project is coming soon2019-10-27T17:59:50+00:002019-10-27T17:59:50+00:00https://growver.com/growver/2020/robot/opensource/2019/10/27/growver-2020<h1 id="the-growver-2020-open-source-project-is-coming-soon">The Growver 2020 open-source project is coming soon</h1>
<p><img src="/assets/images/Growver_2020_Render_1_cropped.png" alt="image" /></p>The Growver 2020 open-source project is coming soonGrowver: The Story as of July 20162016-07-05T19:09:22+00:002016-07-05T19:09:22+00:00https://growver.com/growver/robot/millionaire/inventor/2016/07/05/growver-update<p>It’s coming up on 1 year since Growver was featured on ‘Make Me a Millionaire Inventor’ so I figured this was a great time for a run-through on the Growver story so far.</p>
<p>As a homeowner it hadn’t taken me long to figure out that my lawn sprinkler system wasted a lot of water, was costly to maintain, and basically did a poor job of keeping my grass alive. After years of looking at alternatives, it became clear that effective irrigation requires carrying water and placing it exactly where it’s needed.</p>
<p>Since no-one had built a lawn watering robot before, I was starting from scratch. By the time I started talking with the producers of Make Me A Millionaire Inventor in early 2015, I’d built both hose-connected and tank-based Growver designs. During filming of the show, Michael and Martin at Blue Fish took my second generation prototype and transformed it into something that looks like a real product. I also got to take the new Growver design door-to-door in the LA area, getting real feedback from homeowners in an area that’s facing a massive water crisis. Feedback was very positive – I was on to something big!</p>
<p><img src="/assets/images/make-me-millionaire-inventor-s1.jpg" alt="image" /></p>
<p>The highlight of the Make Me A Millionaire Inventor show is, of course, the pitch. I thought my pitch went very well and apparently so did the investor. The offer if $750K in seed funding gave a multi-million dollar pre-money valuation! Check out the show on CNBC if you haven’t already to follow the story and get the details.</p>
<p>Investor funding was critical to moving the design forward and into initial production and field testing. There are more development costs, as well as testing and expensive tooling. Unfortunately, the investor’s VC fund didn’t close, so we did even start due diligence.</p>
<p>In February 2016 I decided to try funding Growver through a Kickstarter campaign. My first choice was to Kickstart the Make-Me-A-Millionaire-Inventor design. But due to the tooling costs and timeline, I had to go with a simple, hose-connected concept. The Kickstarter generated considerable interest but fell short – everyone wanted a fully automated hose-less that looked like the one on TV!</p>
<p>Today Growver development continues, though on a very constrained budget. Importantly, there’s some really cool technology that will let Growver install quickly and move autonomously around any lawn.</p>
<p>July 2016</p>It’s coming up on 1 year since Growver was featured on ‘Make Me a Millionaire Inventor’ so I figured this was a great time for a run-through on the Growver story so far.How do you make the perfect irrigation system?2016-05-04T19:09:22+00:002016-05-04T19:09:22+00:00https://growver.com/growver/sprinkler/controller/water/saving/irrigation/2016/05/04/perfect-irrigation<p>If you have an unlimited water supply then watering a lawn is easy. Take some pipe, a few sprinklers, create large zones and blast away. Water as much and as often as you like until every square foot is a brilliant green.</p>
<p>In fact, until quite recently, the unlimited water scenario was essentially the reality of many urban areas. But now with drought, tapped-out aquifers, urban growth, aging utility infrastructure, and increased awareness of environmental sustainability, a brute force approach to watering is archaic (some would say lawns themselves are archaic – that’s a great topic for future discussion).</p>
<p>More recently, trends to smaller zones, smart controllers, and sensors can all help save water. The problem is that, fundamentally, water is still flowing through pipes that leak and sprinklers that waste a lot of water. So now, just like gardens, we’re back to hand-watering lawns. Frustratingly, even for a small lawn, that takes hours! And that’s exactly where Growver comes in.</p>
<p><img src="/assets/images/Lawn-Sprinkler-Maze-768x387.jpg" alt="image" /></p>
<p>What would the perfect irrigation system look like? That’s the question that started Growver development and naturally, this is something I still think about a lot.</p>
<p>Most in-ground irrigation systems use the same pipe-in-ground and sprinklers for both lawns and gardens, but it’s far from ideal for either situation.</p>
<p>For performance and water saving, Drip Irrigation is widely regarded as the way to go for gardens, especially if the time and money is invested to properly install and adjust the drip emitters for each plant. But unfortunately common feedback is that drip systems work great for a few years, but eventually suffer from hard-to-locate leaks, breaks in the fairly fragile piping, and root fibers entering emitters. Maintenance costs are high, and often result in replacing, rather than repairing, large sections of a system.</p>
<p>So now we’re back to hand watering of gardens. It’s very efficient, inexpensive, and dependable. Relaxing too, but only if you have the time, state-of-mind, and never leave town. For everyone else, I’m working to find a simple, reliable robotic solution to garden watering.</p>If you have an unlimited water supply then watering a lawn is easy. Take some pipe, a few sprinklers, create large zones and blast away. Water as much and as often as you like until every square foot is a brilliant green.Do Smart Sprinkler Controllers Save Water?2015-06-05T00:05:50+00:002015-06-05T00:05:50+00:00https://growver.com/growver/smart/sprinkler/controller/water/saving/2015/06/05/smart-sprinklers<p><img src="/assets/images/SprinklerController-150x150.jpg" alt="image" /></p>
<p>A recent article in the San Jose Mercury News covered the trend towards smart sprinkler controls. Smart sprinkler controllers promise to reduce water use for most users by over 30%.</p>
<p>Now the definition of a smart controller varies. Options stretch from the addition of a rain sensor, with many devices offering WiFi connectivity that allows them to access online weather information.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.mercurynews.com/troy-wolverton/ci_28761569/wolverton-dreaming-smart-sprinkler-system-my-dumb-home">Mercury News article</a> also made an interesting observation:
Indeed, when they first started rolling out, some of the devices actually resulted in residents increasing their water use, noted Peter Brostrom, water use efficiency program manager at the California Department of Water Resources. Those residents tended to be the ones who already were doing a good job of conserving water, he said.
“If you are already very conscientious with your water use, a smart controller would probably not save you water,” said Brostrom. Instead, he added, they’re most effective “for people who don’t touch them and don’t look at them, who run the same schedule throughout the year.”</p>
<p>The bottom line is that if you are already observing water-saving practices by adjusting your irrigation controller as the weather changes, you’re unlikely to save water by changing out your controller. I’ve heard stories about a similar situation with the Nest thermostat.</p>
<p>Water savings are possible but, since the sprinklers and pipes-in-the-ground don’t change, much of the water waste continues even with a smart controller. Real savings require re-engineering the entire irrigation (or air-conditioning) system, pipes, sprinklers and all. Until that happens, water saving claims should be considered with some skepticism.</p>