SeedPod, Jennifer Broutin Farah's Portfolio

Selected Projects

Fruit/Vegetable loss from farm to table.

Benefits of aeroponics to soil production.

Network of SeedPods growing and sharing information amoung users.

SeedPod V1: installed on a steel frame (for ease in moving) - this would not be necessary in building intsallation where cables could be hung from ceiling. Reservoir provides water and nutrients through the pump to each planter. Sensors are located on every tier for monitoring.

SeedPod V1: view of of the modular planters on the tier, each are made of inflatable plastic that can be collapsed for ease in shipping. Planters are supported by light steel cable and can be attached and detatached as needed.

Students from Dearborn Middle School introduce SeedPod to Kathleen Merrigan, Deputy Secretary of the US Department of Agriculture who came to visit the installation.

With the students and teacher from Dearborn Middle School in Roxbury MA.

SeedPod V1

SeedPod is an interactive farming system that assists everyday people in reliably producing healthy food in urban areas. SeedPod is a scalable, modular system augmented by technology such as monitoring sensors, networked components, and smart mobile applications to facilitate ease and a deeper understanding of the process through which aeroponic vegetables are grown.

SeedPod

2011...

– urban agriculture, prototyping, programming, sensors, food, education, MIT Media Lab

MIT Media Lab, Changing Places Group

SeedPod is an interactive food cultivation system that enables everyday people to reliably produce and access healthy food in urban areas. This is the first system to incorporate aeroponic growing technology with sensors, automation and mobile applications into a fully integrated and responsive system for ease of use in an indoor urban context. By bringing farming to urban areas, it is possible to short-circuit the opacity of large-scale agriculture and create a feedback cycle for healthier, sustainable living through direct access to local produce.

The current prototype incorporates a super lightweight, inflatable and collapsable aeroponic growing system and plant sensors with monitoring system. Because the system is aeroponic - using water/nutrient mist - plants can be grown outside of soil which has myriad benefits (less water, less fertilizers, no pesticides, more varieties of plants, shorter crop cycles, more dense crop growth). The sensor system will provide people with valuable information about what is going behind the scenes with their plants. It will record changes and will allow for comparisons between different growing environments for different types of plants. In future iterations of the project, the system will have the capacity to be semi-automated for ease of use.

The Dearborn Middle School in Roxbury tested the system with a group of students as part of their their activity period for STEM research blocks within the new curriculum for the school. In June 2012, the United States Deputy Secretary of Agriculture, Kathleen Merrigan came to visit the school and see the SeedPod system in use.

We are now working on SeedPod V2. Stay tuned for further details…