Awesomeness – Tribe Awesome

Aeroponics Outreach – MIT City Farm

Elise Meike — Sat, 09 Aug 2014 18:18:13 +0000

In our on going search for awesome projects and leading technologies in aeroponics, we found MIT City Farm. Their goal is to bring aeroponics to the forefront of agriculture and change the way food is grown on a large scale. Caleb Harper, the Founder and Lead Researcher showed us the systems they use and the technology they are creating to improve and analyze it. They also believe that open source is the most efficient and most effective way to achieve the optimal solution for farming. Tribe Awesome agrees. One system uses a technique called shallow water culture, which immerses the roots in a thin film of flowing water. This system allows for a high vertical density structure.

Their other system is a high pressure aeroponics setup. They use high pressure pumps and sprayers to atomize the water and nutrients. This is like fogponics (what we do) as the water is suspended in air. However, the droplet size is slightly larger in high pressure aeroponics compared to fogponics. We are not sure if this makes a difference, and are looking to do an experiment on droplet size.

Thank You MIT City Farm!

Aeroponics Outreach – Chapala Gardens

Briana Das — Sun, 27 Jul 2014 18:03:47 +0000

To meet other people working in the world of aeroponics, we looked at other systems that being used on a commercial scale. During our search, we came across Chapala Gardens, a group of green thumb innovators committed to creating a healthier community through gardening.

Recently, we visited their headquarters in Santa Barbara. Jake, one of the three partners gave us a tour and showed us the systems they sell.

Chapala Garden’s rooftop tower garden in Santa Barbara.

Their style of aeroponics with the Tower Garden^® is different than the fogponic method we use. The tower is around eight feet tall, with a wide base that serves as the reservoir. A pump in the reservoir pushes water to the top of the tower where it drips down on the suspended roots.

This is the reservoir:

This is an empty set of tower blocks:

This is a different view of an empty tower block that shows the holes that water drips through:

Like our systems, the Tower Garden requires a seedling. At Chapala Gardens, they grow and sell their own seedlings (pictured below).

To learn more about Chapala Gardens, visit their website at http://www.chapalagardens.com/

To learn more about the Tower Garden, visit the Juice Plus+ website at https://california.towergarden.com/

Awesome Spiral Book

Elise Meike — Sat, 16 Nov 2013 18:35:03 +0000

Hey Makers!

Check out our new project, Awesome Spiral Book, in the Project section. The project is awesome for presenting ideas in a stylish and simple format!

Have fun!

Enjoy!

Upcoming Workshop Weekend!

Elise Meike — Fri, 11 Oct 2013 04:42:54 +0000

Calling all makers! Workshop Weekend is October 12-13! This is a great event for those of us who want to learn or brush up on making skills. There are classes from the building of sugar skulls to how to use Photoshop, and of course an Awesome Aeroponics Class.

Join us, Tribe Awesome, from 10am-12pm on October 13th (this Sunday) to build and learn how to care for an aeroponic garden. Sign up here right away, registration is closing soon.

Use the coupon code AEROPONICS0813 to get $10 off the registration fee.

We look forward to seeing you!

Aquaponics Outreach – Visit with Rick Frey

Erik Meike — Thu, 20 Jun 2013 12:20:14 +0000

If you do not already know, aquaponics is a form of hydroponics that aims to be self-sufficient by using fish as a source of nutrients. In essence, the fish grow in a reservoir and create waste, mostly in the form of ammonia. Microbes then turn the ammonia into nitrites, and then nitrates, food for the plants. This is excellent for leafy greens which want large amounts of nitrogen.

Plants and Fish Tank in an Aquaponic System

To do some research, we toured an aquaponics system. Rick Frey showed and explained his system to us. It was awesome!

Rick custom-built an aquaponic garden inside a greenhouse. He is growing Tilapia and Goldfish to produce nutrients for his plants. He explained how the nutrition from the fish is not complete, making it more difficult to grow plants like tomatoes. Tomatoes want to have lots of other micronutrients that the fish don’t provide enough of. For plants like lettuce, that want to grow green and leafy, aquaponics works very well. So, depending on the plant, Rick believes that he would would need to supplement the nutrients produced by the fish.

Inside of Rick’s greenhouse

You can see some of the other pictures we took in the gallery below: