DESIGN NAME: Bace Rotofarm
PRIMARY FUNCTION: Hydroponic Garden
INSPIRATION: The agricultural industry grows more destructive day by day. Rotofarm takes healthy organic food out of plastic packaging & into your kitchen. By encouraging people to grow green produce at home, we help to reduce land clearing & deforestation, emissions from industrial refrigeration, transport & food wastage due to expiry. Iterations of rotary hydroponic gardens have existed in space stations and in enormous agricultural applications. We purified this concept into a consumer product.
UNIQUE PROPERTIES / PROJECT DESCRIPTION: The Bace Rotofarm, designed by Australian Toby Farmer, is the world's most space-efficient soil-free indoor vegetable farm. The circular farmbed rotates 360 degrees per hour and would create a 1.5-metre-long flat growing surface if unraveled; all in a 30 cm footprint on your kitchen countertop. Plant growth is accelerated as they spend half their time upside-down in negative gravity. Rotofarm brings a sustainable source of organic vegetables in a beautiful, advanced & all-in-one design.
OPERATION / FLOW / INTERACTION: Technology is a burden when it gets in the way of the very purpose of the product. The intelligent app-controlled automation inside Rotofarm including multiple sensor systems and liquid pumps driven by a single system-on-chip helps the technology and maintenance disappear, so you can focus on growing and eating healthy home-grown vegetables. The bright LED light tube at the centre of the farmbed is similar to the composition of sunlight at earth's surface, with increased red light for optimal plant health. The light tube can be split into four independently dimmable zones. This enables plant species that require lower levels of light to thrive. The four light zones even follow the plants as they rotate!
Plants are automatically fed with ideal levels of water and nutrients efficiently pumped from the water and nutrient reservoirs in the base. No water is lost in soil or evaporation. Simply top up water and nutrient levels when running low and let Rotofarm handle the rest.
PROJECT DURATION AND LOCATION: The project started in late 2018 in Melbourne, Australia and finished June 2019.
FITS BEST INTO CATEGORY: Home Appliances Design
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PRODUCTION / REALIZATION TECHNOLOGY: When I was a kid I would keep saltwater fish. It ended up teaching me about water itself - what’s in it, how to store it and how to move it to where it needs to go. Rotofarm probably wouldn’t have came about without that hobby. We flooded our labs a few times making sure the Rotofarm’s internal pump system worked on its own without the user needing to even think about what goes on inside the device.It turns out a lot can be grown on your kitchen countertop: lettuce, spinach, kale, mint... even cannabis. Rotofarm is constructed from highly-recyclable materials such as aluminium and stainless steel. Bringing the farm into the kitchen meant training plant life to fit the design of the product - the thin "bezel" of the circular farmbed trains roots to grow laterally along the curve, instead of downward which would require a much thicker internal void of the cylinder. I also realized that the light required for vegetables to thrive indoors was very bright, so I created the Magnetic Climate Cover accessory (pictured) which attaches to the front rim of the Rotofarm without latches or locks. This cover wrapped in polished stainless steel cuts 50% of glare, increases visibility of the plants inside and even gives the ability for the user to precisely control humidity inside the Rotofarm.
SPECIFICATIONS / TECHNICAL PROPERTIES: 502 mm x 350 mm x 608 mm
Water tank capacity: 2.0 l
Nutrient tank capacity: 1.0 l
TAGS: hydroponic, garden, kitchen, organic, vegetables, food, home, grown, fresh, sustainable, eco, futuristic
RESEARCH ABSTRACT: -
CHALLENGE: Taming nature to conform to the ideal proportions of a consumer product was difficult. We flooded our labs multiple times trying to achieve optimal flow of liquid nutrients and water from the base of the device to the farmbed. We designed interior 'root guides' that encourage plant roots to grow laterally within a small space, instead of downwards. The brightness of light required for indoor vegetables to thrive is very high. The optional Magnetic Climate Cover is a tinted acrylic panel wrapped in polished stainless steel that cuts 50% of glare from coming into your kitchen and attaches magnetically with no locks or latches. By creating a closed environment with the Cover, the user can even control humidity inside the Rotofarm using an automated internal steaming system.
ADDED DATE: 2019-09-10 03:36:53
TEAM MEMBERS (1) : Toby Farmer
IMAGE CREDITS: Toby Farmer, 2019.
PATENTS/COPYRIGHTS: Copyright © 2019 Bace Australia Pty Ltd. All rights reserved. Australian Business Number (ABN): 89 612 025 608
Trademark numbers: 1988, 1995000, 1920378
Patent numbers: 2019901308, 201913039
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