Tianqi Sun, the founder of the Chinese robotics company Vincross has transformed one of its signature creations, the HEXA, into a very smart six-legged robot flowerpot. The robot interacts with the its environment to efficiently meet the needs of the onboard plant. If the plant needs light, it can move itself over a patch of sunshine or rotate towards it, if it needs food or water, it can make a request with gestures and if it wants human interaction, that can be done too.
Plants are passive. Eternally, inexplicably passive. No matter if they are being cut, bitten, burned or pulled from the earth, or when they lack sunshine, water, or are too hot or cold, they will hold still and take whatever is happening to them. They have the fewest degrees of freedom among all the creatures in nature. This is simply the default setting that nature gives to plants. …With a robotic rover base, plants can experience mobility and interaction. I do hope that this project can bring some inspiration to the relationship between technology and natural default settings.