BERRY

An indoor growing system. (2016)

Instead of using technology to automate indoor food growing, Berry assists users to help them learn about gardening. Users are encouraged to get their hands dirty and enjoy the fun of growing their own food. The technology helps by correcting mistakes to allow the user to learn and not to fail and quit. 

Why grow indoors?

Indoor growing gives people many different advantages but also helps the environment. The more people grow indoors, the more farmland we can give back to nature as well as reduce the waste involved in the logistics of outside food vendors. Additionally, growing your own food promises clean trustworthy produce and the ability to grow food you may normally not find at a local grocer. Although many indoor growing systems achieve these features, the marketplace is saturated with these "industrial" and imposing products that have technology that removes any of the enjoyment in actually growing your own food.

Education and lifestyle

Berry aims to help teach people about gardening and improve their skill through technology but never taking away from the hands on experience gardening has to offer. One of the major pain points with gardening is that the failure rate of growing a plant is high with little feedback to let users learn from the mistake. Berry acts as a fail safe to help encourage people to continue to grow. Additionally, Berry allows people to grow trusted food where ever they are while also helping reduce the world's carbon footprint.

Designing Berry

Berry's design parallels with different aspects of a fruiting plant. Each aspect represents the basics of plant life in their form and allows for a physical interaction point for each. We also wanted to keep the form a bit more natural to stray away from the common industry look that we were avoiding.

How Berry works

Berry is designed to give the user everything they need to grow healthy plants for consumption. The light, nutrients and water are controlled through an analog process but is monitored through the app and adjusted when conditions are harmful for the plant. Learning through feedback and experiences is what makes Berry a helpful and educational source of food.

Berry was a group project done with Daniel Smitasin and Shirley Van. All represented work is a shared effort.