Physical AI for Good + Nonprofit partner · Spooky Civic AI Hackathon
NYC Robo Garden
A robot arm that fills seed trays for a community garden in Harlem.
The problem
Uptown & Boogie Healthy Project grows food at the St. Nicholas Miracle Garden in Harlem, and filling seed trays one cell at a time takes hands they don’t have.
What they built
Working with Judi Desire, the team built the software side of a seed-planting robot: tools that connect a Viam SO-101 arm and its cameras, a simulated seed station where the arm moves seeds into tray cells, and a simulated garden where a robot dog carries the arm between beds.
Where it started
Judith “Judi” Desire runs Uptown & Boogie Healthy Project, which brings affordable fresh produce to Harlem and the Bronx and trains young adults for jobs in city farming and food tech. She grows seedlings in a community greenhouse at the St. Nicholas Miracle Garden.
She told the team her biggest time sink: dropping seeds into every cell of a seedling tray by hand can take hours. That one conversation set the team’s goal for the weekend.
Why it matters
- Small family farms are 86% of U.S. farms, and labor is a big cost: about 42% of greenhouse and nursery expenses.
- Recognizing a seed and actually picking it up are two different problems. Farm robots are still an open research challenge.
- An SO-101 arm costs about $122–$185 in parts. The team compared it with hand planting, a $727 vacuum seeder and a $4,090 walk-behind tractor.
What works today
- A simulated seed station: the SO-101 picks seeds from a dish and places them into six tray cells.
- A simulated garden patrol: a four-legged robot carries the arm past three beds and “harvests” a carrot, lettuce and tomato.
- Real tools to connect the Viam arm and cameras, plus a map of the real St. Nicholas Miracle Garden.
What’s next
Test the arm on real trays and seeds, and measure what matters to a grower: seeds placed per hour, misses and doubles, and how many minutes a person has to step in. The team is honest that the physical demo is still pending.
The bigger idea is a robot station that gardens, schools and co-ops can share and learn on, so people at any age can pick up robotics and AI on a real task.
Summary adapted from the team's own project write-up.
