Week 19: Invention, intellectual property, and income

Individual assignment

1) IP and income plan

I plan to publish this repo as open hardware + open source software. Firmware and application code under Apache 2.0; KiCad carrier, pot mesh, laser-cut dock files, and fab notes under CERN OHL. That matches what I actually built for Fab: multi-MCU firmware, Forest_fairy_v2 carrier, tree-root pot, charging dock, and the Alibaba ASR/TTS dialogue path (Week 17). I want a classmate to fork the bench wiring without emailing me for Gerbers.

Income is not why I took this course. If money ever shows up, I see two realistic paths, both secondary to finishing the Week 20 demo. First, documentation and teaching kits: a simplified sensor + TFT bundle for schools, priced to cover parts and assembly time, with the full omni + Nanostat stack staying open source. Second, paid install help for nursing homes or community centers that want a batch of machines but do not want to debug UART themselves. Holographic projection, auto-refill base stations, and cross-household “plant social networks” are slide-deck ideas for later; they are not in the Week 18 scope contract (Week 18 deferred list).

2) Final project dissemination plan

I split outreach by who actually needs the files:

• Fab classmates and reviewers: this GitLab site, week HTML pages, and repo-root presentation.png / presentation.mp4 before Week 20.
• Maker and hacker communities: mirror the repo to GitHub with LICENSE files in tree; post a short build thread with the Week 17 bench video and BOM link (Week 18 BOM).
• Schools and educators: offer a stripped kit (XIAO + DHT11 + TFT, no omni) if a teacher asks; not a product launch, just spare boards I already have.
• Nursing homes / community centers: only if someone from the Week 18 user scenario contacts me; I would deploy with install notes, not a “mood map dashboard” SKU.

Dissemination timeline from Fab wrap-up (rough, not a startup roadmap):

3) Future directions and how to get there

After Week 20 I am not chasing six parallel product lines. These are the next technical steps that follow directly from Week 18 open questions and what the bench already proved:

4) Done vs still open

Done on the bench (subsystems, not one machine yet):

• Environment sensors: DHT11 temp/humidity, DFRobot light, RS485 soil NPK on XIAO; reads show on TFT in bring-up (Week 10).
• Leaf channel: Pico → Nanostat, UART to XIAO; capture works, calibration and contact repeatability still open (Week 6 rev.2).
• v2 voice: mic → Alibaba ASR/LLM/TTS → ILI9341 + harvested speaker; round-trip proven on bench (Week 17 demo).
• Motion: UNO manual + auto cruise with SR09 avoidance on flat floor (Week 12).
• Carrier + dock: Forest_fairy_v2 PCB fabbed; laser-cut charging dock and tree-root pot printed (Week 8, charging dock).

In progress: full mechanical and electrical integration (pot + base + harness + chili pepper plant as one unit). That is the Week 18 hard task and Week 20 pass/fail item (Week 18).

Not started / explicitly deferred:

• Passive irrigation cavity hardware (CAD only, Week 18).
• Autonomous light seeking or auto-repositioning (out of demo scope).
• Fixed LLM disclaimer copy, cross-species generalization, cloud data retention policy (next version or outside class).

5) What works and what does not

Working now

On separate bench setups: DHT11, light module, and RS485 NPK return stable enough numbers for the TFT pages. Nanostat leaf reads move with watering and contact changes, which is useful but not yet a calibrated curve. Alibaba v2 voice completes a non-menu Mandarin sentence and prints the LLM reply on the ILI9341 while the harvested speaker plays TTS. UNO drives manual PS2 control and auto cruise with SR09 stop/avoidance on a clear floor.

Partially broken

Leaf impedance picks up contact pressure and vibration after potting; I still filter and cross-check against soil NPK before any “plant request” copy goes to the speaker (Week 16 policy). v2 cloud voice latency is fine for a demo script but not for rapid back-and-forth. Nothing has been tuned yet with all four MCUs, TFT, mic, speaker, and motors drawing from the same harness on the integrated machine.

Not started

Repo-root presentation.png and presentation.mp4 (need integrated-machine footage). Published firmware tree with redacted secrets. Any auto-refill or passive irrigation hardware beyond CAD.

6) Key problems to solve

1. Integration first: route harnesses, mate pot to base, power-on with chili pepper plant and leaf electrodes attached without I²C noise returning (Week 16 display debug).
2. Leaf impedance protocol: fix electrode attachment steps so Nanostat curves are comparable day to day.
3. Multimodal guardrails: do not promote a single noisy channel to dialogue; cross-check environment readings before TFT/speaker copy (Week 18 ethics line).
4. Power budget: measure current with omni drives, WROOM WiFi, and voice active on the 2S2P pouch.
5. Demo script reliability: v2 Alibaba chain must survive one full rehearsal on lab WiFi without manual reset.
6. License clarity: mark third-party modules (omni kit, Nanostat, XiaoZhi donor) in README so forks know what is mine vs bought.

7) Remaining work timeline (calendar, not fantasy quarters)

This table continues Week 18 plan from 4 June 2026. Dates slide if lab access slips.

Presentation media (Fab requirement)

Continues from Week 18: repo root now has presentation.png (1920×1080) and presentation.mp4 (1080p, 59 s, ~20 MB).

8) What I learned

IP week forced me to say what I would actually publish versus what was still a slide fantasy. Apache 2.0 + CERN OHL fits the Fab repo I already have: firmware trees, KiCad carrier, pot mesh, week HTML evidence. The hard part is labeling what came from kits (omni base, Nanostat, XiaoZhi donor) so nobody thinks I designed the motor drivers.

Income planning was useful as an honesty check. I do care whether a nursing-home install could work, but crowdfunding, subscription “plant memory,” and city-scale mood maps were writing I did not believe. Trimming those out made the dissemination plan match the Week 18 scope contract instead of a pitch deck.

Technically, the chain from sensors to cloud dialogue to a moving base is real on the bench in pieces. Integration is still the risk I under-scheduled. Leaf impedance is sensitive in ways DHT11 is not; v2 voice works but latency and WiFi dependence matter for the demo script. Every spoken line still has to trace to a sensor flag or an unknown label, same rule as Week 16.

Reusable outputs on this page: license choice, dissemination table, pre–Week 20 calendar, done/open lists tied to Week 18. Next step is mechanical union, then presentation.png / presentation.mp4, then Week 20.