Build Log
Hardware, firmware, AI, and everything in between. PlantPhoebe is being built in the open.
Salt of the Earth
The second batch of boards came back from China and this time they work. Which is how I ended up spending a week at my desk, blind-testing a sensor against unlabeled cups of dirt, cat litter, and one wet paper towel.
One Eternity Later
Five weeks, two continents, and a box from China. The custom boards are real now. The first one I designed doesn't work, the last one works flawlessly, and there's a lesson in that.
A Literal Bug
I cracked open my oldest prototype and found a thriving ant colony, complete with larvae. They had also killed the bird.
Rat's Nest
I designed Phoebe's first PCB on a train, in a coffee shop next to theater producers, and in a health bowl restaurant surrounded by designer dogs. Zero DRC violations.
Schematics for Lunch
I opened KiCad to 'get familiar with the interface.' Six hours later I had a PCB and no memory of eating.
This is Spine
Press fits that don't, a greenhouse effect I didn't plan for, and the realization that Phoebe needs a backbone.
Birds Aren't Real (Yet)
I can reason about soil physics and neural networks but I cannot figure out which way a shape faces when you flip it over.
It's a Bird!
My sister sculpted Phoebe in clay 500 miles away. Her husband photographed it on a bedsheet. We built a photogrammetry pipeline to turn it into a 3D model.
Small Bird Saturday
Two days of real sensor data, a dead microphone, and an accessory bus drawn on a whiteboard next to a battery that's basically the same size as the bird.
Up in Smoke
I reversed the polarity on my own prototype and let the magic smoke out. Then I built a better one.
All in a Day's Work
In which I solder wires, write C++, fight Bluetooth, build an iOS app, and design a QR code for a receipt printer. Before lunch.
Oh the Places You'll Go
My Adafruit shipment is delayed so I accidentally built a farming sim instead. Phoebe now has places to live, things to look at, and three art styles she didn't ask for.
PowerPlant
I built a physics engine for houseplants because the Prius energy monitor lives rent-free in my head.
Aspirational Ani
The first prototype is a $20 kit bash from Adafruit parts buried in a raised bed. It's not pretty, but it works.
Hello, Phoebe
How a garden, a midlife electronics relapse, and a stubborn refusal to read the soil moisture with my fingers led to an AI bird.