Mobile Flower Pot Lets Plants Find Their Own Sunlight

Flower Pot from Xiaolong Mu on Vimeo. Images via

Instead of having to move your plants around to compensate for changing light, wouldn’t it be nice if they could just pack up and move themselves? Xiaolong Mu considered this and designed Chasing Sunlight, a tech-enabled flower pot equipped with light sensors and motorized wheels that debuted at this year’s ITP Winter Show. 

In the daytime, its four light sensors guide it towards the brightest source. In the evenings, Chasing Sunlight rolls itself right back into the shade. “We think the plants also can live like mammal [sic] or insect, it can run and have its own desire,” Mu explains on his website. The device would even have presets to find the appropriate amounts of light needed for different plants. Owners, he suggests, would simply no longer “have to worry about the plants’ photosynthesis anymore.”

In the future, Mu sees the project as an easy-to-assemble DIY Arduino kit. Below, check out a video of Chasing Sunlight in action, as well as some of the behind-the-scenes photos of the project coming together:

P-Comp Final Project – Chasing Sun Flower Pot from Xiaolong Mu on Vimeo. 

Inside the laser-cut acrylic case

Testing the circuit. The four sensors on the paper cup aim in different directions. A distance sensor on the front helps the pot go backwards when reaching an obstacle.

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