Veggie Robot

18.1.2021 | THD-Pressestelle

Since August 2020, four students at the Deggendorf Institute of Technology (DIT) have been pursuing the vision of developing a vegetable robot for hobby gardeners with their start-up SEPP. SEPP is funded by an EXIST start-up grant from the German government and supervised by the DIT Startup Campus team. The first milestone was the interim presentation to the SEPP start-up network on 15 December 2020. The team presented the results of the business plan preparation as well as the current development status of the prospective start-up.

The team around Andreas Stockinger - Martin Seidl, Martin Leitl and Sandra Eichenseher- was able to realise a first prototype in the last few months thanks to the funding provided. The start-up’s vision is a vegetable robot for Smart Efficient Plant Production (SEPP). The aim is to make it easier for hobby gardeners to grow vegetables in their home gardens by automating the vegetable patch. Thus, even those who previously had little time for gardening can enjoy the benefits of self-sufficiency in vegetables. They were supported in this by their mentor Prof Dr Wolfgang Dorner and the Startup Campus of DIT. By the upcoming gardening season in 2021, the team would like to be able to build a functioning robot. Automated watering and weeding should then be possible outdoors for the first time. The young founders plan to enter the market in spring 2022.