i'm not a big gardener, but this farmbot doesn't seem right to me
1. those veggies will be extremely expensive
2. if gardening is your hobby you don't need the farmbot
3. apparently the author was not gardening too much.
let's break it down a bit:
what can it do ?
1. place seeds
2. watering the plants from above
3. measure soil humidity
4. push weeds under soil
placing seeds is few seconds per plant out of the several months of the grow cycle - so automating it makes absolutely no sense
automated watering (including monitoring humidity) can be done efficiently and much cheaper (while covering much bigger area)
poking the weeds under the soil is pointless
what it should do and it can't ?
1. loosen the soil - roots need to "breathe"
2. pull the weeds out including it's roots - many weeds are spreading underground via their roots
3. watering the plants at stems instead of watering the leaves from above
so if you sum it up.. the only conclusion is "it's freaking pointless !" . it can handle 2 square meters of soil at a price of 3000$
and it won't last longer than 1 or 2 years outside (rain, dust, UV light).