“The plant-radio was build to enhance people’s relation with their plants by being able to tap into the plant’s electrophysiological signals and output the data as sound, pulsating lights and a graph. It was produced as part of a research project called Growing CoDesign, and we want it to live on here on instructables for other people to have the same experience of communicating with plants.
In the video you can hear how the radio sounds.
Casing: The main body of the radio is made in laser cut plywood. We’ve 3D printed the turnknobs and also a mount that is inside the radio holding the LED strip in place. In our version we’ve also attatched a leather strap onto the radio to make it portable, but this is optional for you to do.
Software: The radio runs on a raspberrypi 3+, where the data comes from an EMG sensor into an Arduino sketch, which controls the LED lights and forwards the data to a Processing sketch that draws the graph, and also a OpenData patch that handles the sounds.
Equiptment and tools:
- Laser cutter
- 3D printer
- Soldering iron
- Electrician screwdrivers
- Wrench
- Tape, wood glue and gluegun
- Screws M2,5 3mm
- Bolts M2,5 25mm
- Small paintbrush for applying wood glue (optional)
- Cable shoes (optional)
Casing:
- 1 sheet plywood for laser cutting
- Transparant acrylic sheet for laser cutting (optional, can be substituted with parchment paper)
- Leatherstrap and buttons (optional)
Technology:
- 1x Potentiometer 1K resistance
- 1x Potentiometer 100K resistance
- Power supply board
- Sound board
- Raspberry pi + micro SD card with operating system flashed onto it
- Arduino trinket
- Speaker
- Resistance
- Led strip
- Screen
- USB cable (for power to raspberry)
- USB port extention (for charging)
- USB serial adapter (for trinket and raspberry connection)
- Wires”