(Mostly) Harmless Houseplant Wields Machete

In a straight struggle concerning a houseplant and a human, you could possibly assume the plant to be at a major disadvantage. So [David Bowen] has decided to even the odds a minimal by arming this philodendron with a robotic arm and a machete.

The create is a minimal limited on information but, from the video clip, it seems that adhesive electrodes have been connected to the leaves of the not long ago-empowered plant and connected directly to analog inputs of an Arduino Uno. From there, the textual content tells us that the alerts are mapped to movements of the industrial robot arm that retains the blade.

It is not very clear if the preference of plant is sizeable, but an unarmed philodendron seems to be otherwise mostly innocuous, except you materialize to be a hungry rodent. We hope that there is also a indicates of disconnecting the power remotely, else this art installation could defend itself indefinitely! (or till it will get thirsty, at minimum.) We at Hackaday welcome our new leafy overlords.

We have covered the capabilities of plants in advance of, and they can represent a loaded seam of study for the property hacker. They can tell you when they are thirsty, but can they bend mild to their will? We even held a Plant Conversation Hack Chat in 2021.