PlantBot takes your flora in search of sun (and fun!)

You try and you try to keep your plants well-watered and situated in the brightest spot you can find, but that darned sun has an annoying tendency to move and leave your urban foliage wilting. You could try leaving them in the window, or switching to creepy robotic flowers, or you could just replace your pots with PlantBot, a four-legged contraption designed to seek out the sun and plunk your plant right where it needs to be. Designed by The Play Coalition, a group of people who "love to design things that are often functional but usually just fun," it looks like something out of a woodworking-themed anime, tickling our geeky natures while exuding that undeniable aesthetic of a well-made piece of furniture -- even if not delivering quite the same level of usefulness. Alas, there's no video available of this in action, but we do have an animation of it shambling across the room waiting for you just below.

[Via MAKE]

[nanaky @ Oct 21st 2008 10:15AM]

The plant is gonna vomit...

[John @ Oct 21st 2008 10:18AM]

Imagine an army of these!!!

[[e-mail] @ Oct 21st 2008 11:01AM]

An army of those might break out and start singing some disney tunes ... haven't you seen Beauty and the Beast???

[Jeff @ Oct 21st 2008 11:06AM]

Imagine an army of these start to sing disney tunes ... oh, be my guest, be my guest.....

[Anthony @ Oct 21st 2008 10:29AM]

Plantbot. Roomba. Fight.

[Rudi @ Oct 21st 2008 10:31AM]

They ended the video before the robotic vacuum cleaner came scuttling out to clean up the inevitable soil trail...

[NHAnimator @ Oct 21st 2008 10:32AM]

Put a venus flytrap in this and make your own Little Shop of Horrors.

[Sisyphus @ Oct 21st 2008 10:35AM]

Does this mean the robot's environmental impact is pre-mitigated?

The future: Where robots have plants on their heads.

[Sola @ Oct 21st 2008 10:39AM]

Okay, i laughed. This comment cheered me up immensely.

[Testies, Testies, 1, 2... 3? @ Oct 21st 2008 1:38PM]

This is the new "Carbon Neutral"

[Eddie @ Oct 21st 2008 10:37AM]

It's a synthetic triffid! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Day_of_the_Triffids

[meist3r @ Oct 21st 2008 10:46AM]

Now tap the photosynthesis and run that thing of the sunlight it searches. Automated survival in a can. Brilliant, I want one.

[sip @ Oct 21st 2008 10:49AM]

I would like to buy one, and let it shuffle it's way into the sunny part of my heart

[Johnny @ Oct 21st 2008 11:12AM]

Oh, how sweet. It's a good little plant robot.

[BTD Greg @ Oct 21st 2008 10:51AM]

I, for one, welcome our robotic houseplant overlords!

[Stiv @ Oct 21st 2008 11:46AM]

I, for one, think you FAIL!

[Lowest Ranked @ Oct 21st 2008 12:07PM]

Stiv, you're not doing any better.

[Stiv @ Oct 21st 2008 12:38PM]

Oh, is it okay to use the robot overlord thing again? If so, there's many better ways that one could have been written:

"I for one welcome our houseplant-carrying, sunlight-seeking, wooden leg-walking robot overlords."

[Testies, Testies, 1, 2... 3? @ Oct 21st 2008 12:54PM]

"All your plants are belong to us!"

[GenBanks @ Oct 21st 2008 1:04PM]

this is the thread everyone comes to when they want to fail

[happy_penguin @ Oct 21st 2008 5:04PM]

I wonder if it blends...
Can it play Crysis...

[joe23521 @ Oct 21st 2008 10:57AM]

Now all we need is a TV-stand-bot to move itself around and avoid being blocked by the plant-bot.

[PeRFeCK @ Oct 21st 2008 12:57PM]

lol...good one. but seriously, when it senses sunlight somewhere off the counter top or down the stairs and crawls there, will people be refunded?

[Chris Aubeck @ Oct 21st 2008 11:00AM]

Dr. Who's new foe?

[GB @ Oct 21st 2008 11:04AM]

Haha, that's a cool idea. You should tell this to the guys from The Play Coalition! :D

[Matt @ Oct 21st 2008 11:09AM]

Forget the plants, I am sure that my cat would knock the plant off and make themselves a bed on this. A perpetual cat nap, "Take me to your sun, Meeeooowww". I can see it now, my cats would gain more weight as they just lay there not even having to move to make a new bed someplace else in the house.

[cjl @ Oct 21st 2008 11:09AM]

When are cats going to realize all they have to do is ride this around for a permanent sun-nap?

[Lowest Ranked @ Oct 21st 2008 12:08PM]

Brilliant idea! I can't imagine where you came up with that one.

[Ayman @ Oct 21st 2008 11:18AM]

Is it me or does the plant seem to be running AWAY from the light

[T.H. @ Oct 21st 2008 11:26AM]

How long before this contraption emerges as an unholy melding of plant and machine? How long before we are enslaved by such unholy contraptions? And on that note, I for one welcome our light seeking plant-machine overlords.

[▀█▀ █ ▀█▀ ▄█▀ @ Oct 21st 2008 11:27AM]

So would two of those engage in apocalyptic battle for the brightest spot in the house? I'm sold.

[edzy @ Oct 21st 2008 11:33AM]

Now if they can get it to scavenge for water on it's own.

[Luke @ Oct 21st 2008 11:37AM]

Ok, but is the bot solar powered as well?

[rita hainsworth @ Oct 21st 2008 11:38AM]

Here is the setup....I take it out and set i up outside. I sit on it and it takes me to beach...OH MY GOD..I love it!

[Lowest Ranked @ Oct 21st 2008 12:11PM]

Actually, it would just sit there in your sunny backyard.

[M o @ Oct 21st 2008 11:48AM]

I regret to point out that it is actually the movement of the darned earth that causes the change in the direction of light.

[Lowest Ranked @ Oct 21st 2008 12:10PM]

Oh, that darned earth. However will we stop it so that the Plantbot can keep up?

[Troels C @ Oct 21st 2008 7:15PM]

Or put up more of those giant russian space mirrors...

[Gum @ Oct 21st 2008 11:59AM]

Bulbasaur... anyone?

[HOOPER @ Oct 21st 2008 3:18PM]

What happens when this evolves?

[Trevor @ Oct 21st 2008 6:09PM]

It becomes self-sufficient and kicks you out of the house, after learning to use the sink.

[Russell @ Oct 21st 2008 12:06PM]

Someone needs to take this technology and make it able to travel on both water and land. Then set it off on an amazing robotic journey following the sun around the world...

[Cybergypsy @ Oct 21st 2008 12:25PM]

Very cool

[ap @ Oct 21st 2008 12:31PM]

Sadly, this may be the coolest thing that this company has made. Sorry , but a rubber stamp or a hoodie that turns into a bag are not revolutionary inventions.

[Christian @ Oct 21st 2008 12:37PM]

so at night does it constantly roam your house till it find sunlight possibly hunt it's owner and in search of the sun?

[umijin @ Oct 21st 2008 12:42PM]

Two Words: Way Cool!

[fhew @ Oct 21st 2008 12:50PM]

I'm surprised no one has asked yet...

Is this thing solar powered, or is it going to come crashing to the
floor when it gets its legs tangled up in its own power cord?

[TopicBean @ Oct 21st 2008 1:01PM]

I wonder if we could add a drip system to water them, the plant can take care of itself then!

[blore40 @ Oct 21st 2008 1:12PM]

"Judge, I don't know how this pot plant got here. Must have come looking for some sunshine".

[abu @ Oct 21st 2008 1:34PM]

imagine sticking an umbrella on top of it and enjoy the watch of an endless journey