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Supplies
batteriesBatteries
1x Camera Battery
1x Flash Battery
4x Amiga Batteries with 4x Keys
Camera with attached lens Attached Lens (handle with care)
Flashmeasuring tape
USB-A to USB-C Cable
Measuring Tape
Color checker chartChecker
Stool
1. Setup
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Bench Bot and Camera
Attach the camera and lens if separated.
Replace the battery in the camera if low. I have found that
Attach camera to the flash bracket. It is held in place by a screw and two washers. Try to align camera lens to parallel with the ground as best you can, and tighten as much as is reasonable. If the camera is too loose, it does not have a risk of falling but the BBot’s movement can jostle it and cause it to be pointed at an angle, which can lead to the amiga being in frame, pot edges being cut-off, etc. if this was not anticipated.
Attach the camera to the BBot bracket. The black triangle piece on the back of the flash bracket will slide into the piece toward the bottom of the BBot z-axis. Make sure to have a strong grip on the flash/camera and always have a hand below the camera. It can take a couple tries to properly hook it on (sometimes only one side will slide in), so you want to ensure you do not drop it.
Unscrew the cap on the BBot box USB port. At this point, you may attach the camera to the box via the USB-C to USB-A cable. If using a long cable, make sure it does not hang below the camera so that it does not get in any of the photos.
Place the four amiga batteries into the BBot. There is a battery slot above each wheel that they will slide into. Make sure it slides into the bench bot’s internal track, it can be easy to slide one of the sides on top the track instead of in it.
Once all batteries are inserted, you may put the keys into the battery. When turning from “Unlocked” to “Off”, a little peg will push out of the battery (on it’s bottom side) to enter a hole in the frame of the Amiga. If you cannot change the battery from “Unlocked,” then it is likely the peg cannot extend down into the hole due to a misalignment. You may just have to wiggle the battery around a little bit, or the battery may not be in the tracks and you may have to slide it out and slide it back in properly.
Plug the dangling power cables into their batteries. Each battery has its own power cable.
Turn on BenchBoton the batteries with the key.
At this point BBot will begin booting up. The Amiga interface will be immediately available to use, while the BBot app interface will take a minute or two to boot. Remove the cover from the amiga interface, and press start. Reduce the motor speed to 4 bars (a value of 80). We do not want to BBot moving too fast.
Adjust the BBot alignment if needed using the joystick. At MD, the bench itself is a little curved so it can be difficult to get a straight alignment. Try your best to get the BBot wheels to be as parallel as you can with the left and right edges of the pots. It is okay to pause the BBot when it is running to make quick alignment adjustments later when you are conducting the batch collection. When choosing a starting place, make sure the camera is above the first row.
On the Amiga interface, click the “Auto” tab on the left (it is an A surrounded by a circle). On this page, turn auto-control on. The light on the joystick should be orange or blue. When this is on, the BBot will be able to control itself (so the Y-axis is now controlled), but the joystick will be unresponsive. To make further BBot adjustments with the joystick, you may turn this off when needed. Make sure to turn back on after making your adjustments, however, because if BBot is started with this “off,” then it will be unable to move forward and will continuously take images of the same row.
2. Thin and Weed Potting Area
Discard non-target weeds or overlapping plants by placing them in a bucket or bag. Do not leave removed weeds or plants on pots or on the landscape fabric. This is to avoid detecting them in the images that we collect.
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