Automatic Seeder Machine at OnePointOne

This custom automation equipment we called the AutoSeeder was developed in my role as Robotics Engineer II at indoor agriculture company OnePointOne. The purpose of AutoSeeder is to plant seeds and grow medium into custom growing hardware in a vertical orientation and integrate with OPO's plant movement robotic systems as part of their vision of full indoor farm automation.

During the course of this work, some responsibilities and notable achievements are:

- Designed and tested active and passive mechanisms utilizing techniques including static and dynamic physics modeling, tolerance stack up analysis, statistical analysis of performance during testing
- Completed ~%50 of CAD for this machine, including all detailed drawings of parts and assemblies for machine shops and technicians. I was responsible for the Cartesian motion systems, framing and guarding, and "toolhead" (fabric cutting and folding)
- Met UL safety standards for all electronics and hardware through a detailed review process of documentation, inspection, and demonstration culminating in prototype serial numbers 2 through 4 all receiving field labels.
- Delivered four prototype units including doing an in depth revision of the machine hardware demonstrating significant performance improvements. I worked closely with engineering technicians to see that prototypes were of sufficient quality and stayed well maintained.. Our longer running machine has been in operation for well over two years.
- Consistently communicated estimated project costs and timelines ensured that our team was on top of all tasks and responsibilities associated with engineering development, machine fabrication, and farm operations for plant production
- Wrote and maintained software for operator interface with the machine in Python featuring a web server with local UI and REST API for farm automation control and telemetry, multiple FLIR camera video streams and motion control using machine vision analysis of video as measurement of state, and state machine for the coordination of a 10 + mechanisms.