
Offer HN: Free Use of Agricultural Land 30 miles Northwest of Chicago - syedkarim
We own 13 acres of ag-zoned land just outside of Chicago. We have access to an adjacent 70 acres. I am offering free use of the land for anyone who has an interesting project that requires land and proximity suburban&#x2F;urban environment--and wifi network.<p>The land is located 35-miles from downtown Chicago and 25 miles from O&#x27;Hare airport. It&#x27;s smack-dab in the middle of suburbia and there is a Menards within walking distance. http:&#x2F;&#x2F;goo.gl&#x2F;6tjC8g<p>If the idea is interesting enough, I&#x27;ll even build you a shed or a cabin (out of 2x4s; nothing fancy).<p>The land will include the following amenities, all of which is available at no cost (for really cool projects).<p>--well water (within reason)
--septic field
--electricity (within reason)
--wifi
--fenced and unfenced acreage<p>Starting next year, there will be bees, flowers, goats, chickens, dogs, and alpaca on the land. And very likely a mini-donkey, to keep the coyotes at bay.<p>Feel free to suggest anything you actually want to implement. Or just suggest ideas that others may want to run with. Other than providing power and internet, I don&#x27;t have the time to help with anything else.<p>Some ideas my wife and I have come up with:<p>--real-life Farmville with wifi robots
--tiny, automated combines
--experimental wind turbine development
--cubesat ground stations (not really ag-related, but still cool)
--goat-milking bots<p>This is no strings attached. We just want to encourage really interesting technical-agricultural projects. Let a thousand flowers bloom.
======
mparlane
I've always had the idea of growing sugarbeet on a conveyor belt. It would
take 100-120 days to get from one end to another. You plant a seed with dirt
at the start and a sugarbeet rolls off the end after the grow time. You filter
out the sugarbeet from the dirt when it falls off (sieve).

The conveyor would be fully solar powered and it's power requirements would
not be very much due to the slow progression.

Once you have the sugarbeet, you turn it in to ethanol, hopefully with another
automated process.

Economics of sugarbeet to ethanol:
[http://www.isosugar.org/Egypt/GL2.2.pdf](http://www.isosugar.org/Egypt/GL2.2.pdf)

~~~
nostromo
Check out this conveyor belt farm in Japan:
[http://youtu.be/F_WuJ9P1u-k](http://youtu.be/F_WuJ9P1u-k)

~~~
Istof
Combine this technique with multiple layers like this:
[http://www.gereports.com/post/91250246340/lettuce-see-the-
fu...](http://www.gereports.com/post/91250246340/lettuce-see-the-future-
japanese-farmer-builds)

edit: fixed link....

~~~
mparlane
Did you mean to post the same youtube clip as above?

------
objectReason
Fully automated aquaponics
([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquaponics](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquaponics)).
I've been designing and building aquaponics systems in my kitchen and front
yard for the past 3 years. Nothing grows like an well-designed AP system. It's
incredible how hands-off and easy they can be once setup. I'd be willing to
help design and setup said system.

~~~
criley2
Please give me a link to anything from your communities that can help me get
into that! Wikipedia is very good at never letting me find the people Who Do
Things.

~~~
objectReason
There are lots of smaller communities springing up but Aquaponics is a
relatively new technology. There is not a central, well-established community
for AP growing. However, here are a few links to some projects:

[http://www.growingpower.org/](http://www.growingpower.org/) They have
reported some insane yields off very small plots using AP technology. Also, as
they grow in the midwest - the climate and conditions should be relevant.

[http://practicalaquaponics.com/blog/](http://practicalaquaponics.com/blog/)
Murray has been a go to for my research as he has been using AP in Australia
for years and has a solid, proven modular system.

I do my research on various forums, but have learned the most through my own
experimentation. Feel free to hit me up with any questions.

~~~
jitl
Do you have pictures or a website set up by any chance? I'd love to take a
look at your tinkerings.

~~~
objectReason
No site available yet. I'm working on a github release of the plans, but it
still needs work.

------
xherberta
Raising insects as a protein source for chickens would be an interesting and
worthwhile project. (says the UN, even:
[http://www.fao.org/docrep/018/i3253e/i3253e07.pdf](http://www.fao.org/docrep/018/i3253e/i3253e07.pdf))
Caveat: it seems that in the US, using insects as a livestock feed is
explicitly legal only in Ohio. Which is odd since pastured chickens certainly
gobble their share of bugs, but understandable since we don't want insects
that are raised on ... extremely disgusting things ... being fed to the
animals we eat.)

OfBug is already working on this, selling larvae for farmers who want to start
raising insects as a protein source for their animals.
[http://www.ofbug.com/animalfeed](http://www.ofbug.com/animalfeed)

It would be fun to experiment with modular units that you raise insects in.
You'd keep a pipeline of bugs in various stages of development. Then, when
it's time to feed the chickens, take a module, open it up for the chickens,
and watch the fun! Maybe the bug container could be made of heavy paper so it
could be cheap and biodegrade quickly. Or it could be something reusable like
a bucket. (That's so simple I don't think it counts as an idea. But if someone
figures out a good system, they'll surely be able to turn it into a
book/product line/service. Maybe they'll go to work for the UN trying to get
everyone to do it.)

Of course, rotating the chickens across vast pastures a la Joel Salatin is
probably the ideal way to provide fresh daily bugs as far as chicken nutrition
and land management is concerned.

~~~
ekianjo
> using insects as a livestock feed is explicitly legal only in Ohio

Really ? That's very surprising. What's the officially allowed livestock feed?
Only corporation made stuff?

~~~
jqm
I believe mad cow disease put a stop to commercial use of animal components in
feed for animals that will be consumed. I don't know if this applies to
insects. When I was a kid we fed burnt chicken feathers to cows.. I think that
is outlawed now as well (commercially, I'm sure you could do it for home use).

I think insects to chickens is a great idea though. There are some people that
grow mealworms for chickens and I've seen dried mealworms at the feed store as
chicken treats.

I had some chickens this year (my first year with them). A weasel got in
through a small hole smaller than my fist and killed every chicken at about 9
weeks old. He then took about half of them back out the same hole... in pieces
and left the remainder for me to find in the morning. It was a pretty gruesome
scene. I set some traps but was never able to catch him. But before the
massacre, I would take the chickens out at night and hold them under the back
porch light and they would happily stuff themselves on insects and moths
landing on the wall.

I want to come up with an insect trap so as to avoid the trouble of raising
insects. They are all over anyway... why cultivate them?

I'm building a better coop and am going to try again next spring.

~~~
lxmorj
I bet you could design a lighted tunnel that moths from the street would
happily follow straight into the chicken coop! There might need to be some
trickery involved, as I think tend to fly around the light and not directly at
it.

------
te_platt
Very clever nerd sniping. Until I read this I had no idea how badly I wanted
to do something with agro-tech. All my ideas so far are just too silly to
mention.

~~~
ctdonath
I'll mention:

Square-foot garden rental. Mail in the seeds and specify the area needed (in
1ft^2 increments), service plants/waters/weeds/harvests accordingly, providing
webcam/etc updates, mailing the produce back.

~~~
makmanalp
Even better, you get an API that gives you a photo of your square, air and
soil humidity, temperature, and a call to water the square for x seconds.
Planting and harvesting is manual, everything else you automate!

~~~
thebenedict
That sounds probably stupid, and like a tremendous amount of fun.

------
taylorwc
> And very likely a mini-donkey, to keep the coyotes at bay.

City-boy here. How do mini-donkeys keep coyotes at bay??

~~~
jccooper
They're territorial, mean, and not particularly scared.

Does depend on number of donkeys vs number of coyotes though. They're ornery,
not magic.

~~~
artie_effim
ok - that last line is my new email sig for the next 6 months. replacing
"there's no problem so bad that you can't make it worse"

~~~
relaunched
I might borrow it for my signature too ;-)

------
omegaworks
South East side of Chicago / Northwest Indiana resident, recently MIT
graduated software developer wanting to put some of my skills to work on
something like this. Microcontroller Project Laboratory at the 'tute left me
with a Cypress PSOC and crazy ideas. The extent of my gardening knowledge ends
with basil, thyme and peppermint, but I had the freshest teas and tastiest
pizzas in my frat. :)

Let's make drones that recognize the heat patterns of weeds and pull them for
us, or laser weed spores right out of the sky...

Let's tap into the local food movement. People want to know where their food
comes from. Let's make them hyperaware - live video feeds of the way the seed
was planted, they watch their food grow before their eyes.

~~~
CBanga
A fellow NWI resident, mobile app designer and dev in Valpo. I would love to
brainstorm/help. If you're interested, let me know!

------
pcv
I worked with villagers in Peace Corps and Navajos in schools. What small farm
tools do they need? Lighting at night and cooking during the day w/o firewood?

UAV for plant and animal monitoring.
[https://code.google.com/p/uavplayground/](https://code.google.com/p/uavplayground/)
[http://unfoldingmaps.org/](http://unfoldingmaps.org/)

We are using Arduino, GPS, Raspberry Pi.
[http://playground.arduino.cc/Tutorials/GPS](http://playground.arduino.cc/Tutorials/GPS)

Biohacking would reduce animal agriculture.
[https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/real-vegan-
cheese](https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/real-vegan-cheese)

Biochar for farming?
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biochar](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biochar)

Amaranth and quinoa sprouting. We grow these well in Santa Fe, NM. But
sprouting is too hard. How do we create a sprouting machine to produce sprouts
without mold and endless sprout rinsing?

How can we use Ecat and Blacklight power systems for decentralized farms?
Lighting and cooking? Distillation, food sterlization, fermentation,
refrigeration, biochar? [http://ecat.org](http://ecat.org)
[http://www.blacklightpower.com/](http://www.blacklightpower.com/)

------
scourge
Hi, I have several good ideas, some of which I've already implemented on my
own property, and thousands of (possibly) less viable ideas in my wastebasket.
I'm an automation programmer/sysadmin and so everything I do has to be
automatable. I've found thought that often things can be automated naturally,
without arduino or anything. Here are things I would look at doing: 1\.
Grassland management. See Alan Savoury
[http://vimeo.com/80518559](http://vimeo.com/80518559) Note: I would do this
with a honeycomb structure of hedges with automatic gates. 2\. Aquaponics. I
have just finished/am finishing a ~60,000L aquaponics system at my house.
Naturally automated (other than planting and harvesting, which can be
automated/made efficient. See my blog (posted below)

Also read up on Ben Falk's research. If you're honestly wanting me to put
something in place, we'd have to discuss the details and we'd have to fly out
and put things in place. I lived in Wisconsin for years but I'm working in
London now and honestly I'd be VERY interested in trying some things specific
to the mid-west. Good luck! Oh, to contact me, jump on #opensourceecology on
freenode and shout for me I'm always on.

~~~
mrfusion
Where's your blog? I'm curious to read more.

------
randomdata
_" tiny, automated combines"_

I've seriously wanted to explore this for a long time. When current combine
technology can cost well into the half million dollar range, it seems ripe for
disruption. Chicago is out of my way (and I already own farmland of my own
anyway) – its capital costs that have held me back. But if anyone actually
takes on this project, I'll be watching very closely.

~~~
makmanalp
One cool related topic is how much agricultural automation gear costs. For a
robo project we used a trimble GPS with sub-meter resolution that cost around
2k, but honestly I feel like with a local radio base-station and a gps you
could probably come up with something similarly accurate and cheap for way
less money! I'm sure when it comes to controlling the combines automatically,
it gets even more exorbitant.

~~~
toomuchtodo
[http://hackaday.com/2013/08/05/centimeter-level-precision-
gp...](http://hackaday.com/2013/08/05/centimeter-level-precision-gps-for-500/)

------
kefka
Have you thought about contacting opensourceecology.org and offering these
guys/gals?

------
toomuchtodo
I live 12 miles away from you. Want help? This is exactly what I've been
looking to do!

~~~
incomethax
I live not too far away myself. Anyone taking @syedkarim up on his offer, I
would love to help out!

~~~
syedkarim
I welcome all assistance. Feel free to reach out.

~~~
syedkarim
My contact info: Twitter @syedkarim Gmail: syed.f.karim

------
cyorir
Supercool. I have no doubts you'll find lots of Chicago-area people looking to
put that land to use. However, if you are looking for a good base of people to
reach out to my suggestion is to tap into Northwestern University. It's a bit
hard to reach for most people there, but I'm sure you could find some people
who would desire land for some project or another.

~~~
avyfain
I go to NU and find this opportunity extremely interesting. I am not involved
in any kind of agro-tech, but I will put a word in with people in the
university's sustainability committee, who probably know of projects that
might find this useful.

------
wcunning
This is an awesome idea/project. Sadly, I do not have any project ideas that
the brilliant minds at John Deere haven't already come up with because those
guys are awesome (Google can't beat their driverless tractors). I would really
like to see what comes of this, though. Would you mind requiring
documentation, a blog perhaps?

~~~
syedkarim
Sure thing. Even if no one runs with their own plans, I'll be documenting the
home construction and small farm process.

~~~
opendais
If it is already up, link? :)

~~~
syedkarim
Not yet, though it should be done in the spring. Our house will basically be a
2000 square foot concrete warehouse. I'll be sure to stop-motion the
construction process.

~~~
opendais
Interesting choice. :)

Well try to post it on HN when you are done, I'm curious.

------
maceo
If you haven't already, you should check out The Plant. I took the trip to
Chicago all the way from LA just to check out this place. When I went a couple
years ago it was in its early stages, but it was still a great experience to
tour the facility.

[http://www.plantchicago.com/](http://www.plantchicago.com/)

~~~
patcon
that is an amazing project. surprised they have no software partners to help
build open platforms that help run the place :)

------
polytap
Great idea and gesture to the community.

Does any of your land receive irrigation?

I'd like to send you several surface and subsoil sensors to deploy that will
communicate back to me via GPRS. Just a couple of minutes is needed to deploy
each sensor.

And it would be very helpful if you could send back a soil sample at my
expense.

Does this sound practical?

~~~
syedkarim
This is absolutely practical. I'm happy to do this. The land was previously
used as a tree farm, so there is no irrigation system. But there is some
marshland on the property.

My contact info is in my profile. Very much looking forward to this.

------
chadkruse
You probably already know this, but if you think there might be wind
generation potential I'd highly recommend throwing up an anemometer just for
the heck of it. When I was mucking around that industry back in Oregon (helped
a friend launch a business refurbishing turbines), the universities gave out
loaners.

Also, you've probably already done this as well, but if the property has
wetlands, those have HUGE ecological value particularly given the location.
Lots of ways to monetize that ecological value these days via wetland banking,
conservation easements, etc. You'd save some critters, reduce some local
flooding, AND have some extra mad cash for crazy experiments. Triple win!

~~~
syedkarim
Can you provide more details about the ways to monetize wetlands? The property
has some minor wetlands; no standing water, but soft ground (plants are used
to determine wetlands, anyway).

~~~
chadkruse
Both wetland banking and conservation easements effectively do the same
thing...you transfer/sell the ecological value to someone that values it, and
lock it into being a wetland into perpetuity (or some agreed-to number of
years).

In the case of wetland banking, a developer may purchase the "banking credits"
produced by your wetland to offset the destruction of a wetland on their site.
Google around for wetland banking or mitigation banking.

With easements, you find a local organization (usually a local land trust or
nonprofit, but could be a park district or other quasi-governmental agency)
that has a defined mission of maintaining wetlands, combating the urbanization
of our farmlands, etc. You agree to lock up the wetland portion of your
property, they give you cash.

I don't know anyone there, but a good start might be your local NRDC office:
[http://www.nrdc.org/about/chicago.asp](http://www.nrdc.org/about/chicago.asp)

They might also be a good resource if you start playing with wind turbines.

------
moxie
I know a lot is happening with FarmBot right now, and that they've talked
about doing larger-area experiments. You might consider getting in touch with
them: [http://go.farmbot.it/](http://go.farmbot.it/)

------
n0rm
This guy can populate all the land with cool projects which will eventually
benefit research -
[http://biology.ucsd.edu/research/faculty/smayfield](http://biology.ucsd.edu/research/faculty/smayfield)

------
columbo
Great idea, have you informed your local makerspaces? They might be able to
set up a competition.

[http://pumpingstationone.org/](http://pumpingstationone.org/) <\-- Here's
one, though I've never been there.

------
weland
I'm halfway across the globe so I can't quite put my code where my mouth
(well, fingers) is, but this is awesome! I hope you manage to make something
great!

If anyone needs any help with writing low-level software for a project here,
or with anything requiring electricity, I'd be happy to help if we can release
my code/schematics under a reasonable-ish open source license (BSD, GPL,
MIT...). I just moved in to a new apartment so I'm kindda busy for the next
two months or so, but I should be able to squeeze in at least _some_ time.

------
mempko
I am a software engineer living in fox river valley, south west of the place.
I work in the mapping industry. If someone is doing a project that may require
mapping, ping me and I may be able to help out.

Gmail: mempko

------
keerthiko
I have always had the idea that a cool pan-age engineering education institute
should be founded on such a space. In fact your offered location sounds ideal:
close enough to a city to capitalize on its resources but sufficiently removed
to be free of unwanted distractions.

Kids of all ages are accepted into the program, and they don't pay any fees,
but have to sustain and support themselves. They form a tight-knit community
as follows.

\- home schooling to a new level: kids of all ages and experiences are here.
Teach each other in organized classes what you know and is useful, from arts,
engineering, math, physics, biology, anything. Basic supervision and
occasional classes by the "founding adults".

\- self-sustaining: farm some food, raise some animals, with help from on-site
professionals. Use technology to improve this and help out those professionals
(see below)

\- BYOS: build your own school. Identify needs of the community (we need a
toolshed. we need a water sprinkler system. we need air conditioning...).
Learn to raise funds, some from the "founding adults", some from parents, some
from neighboring city. Kids learn to work within a timeline, a budget, scoping
projects, designing engineering systems, implementing, and overcoming
roadblocks. As a team.

\- Bring back to the real world: to graduate the institute, they basically
have to create something of value to bring back to the rest of the world.
Evaluated by a community panel of students, "founding adults" and external
visitors/evaluators. This makes them apply what they've learned outside of the
bubble they've been living in.

\- alumni could obviously love this place so much they want to stay on, in
which case they transition to becoming "founding adults"

Obviously, there are no exams, or mandatory lectures, or homework, or any of
that shit. Kids have to learn to be good people to not get expelled, and they
have to produce _some_ meaningful value for the community every month of the
year. That's it. It's a bit idealistic, but I think doable, and is more in-
line with what education should be like in today's world.

If I were allowed to stay in the US and had the capital in my pocket to cover
everything your generous offer didn't, I would be on the next flight to
O'hare.

~~~
JetSpiegel
Sounds like a cult to me...

Or quarians, to be honest.

------
thecolorblue
This is a great idea, and very generous of you. I hope it works out.

I am working on a website for small farmers to make it easier to sell what
they are growing through marketing and simplified sales. I would be interested
in setting up a small test farm, or just providing early access to what we are
working on for whomever does use the space.

Send me an email at brad.bdavis1 gmail (or anyone else interested). I would
like to chat.

------
Houshalter
I've always wanted to get into plant breeding. Unfortunately it's a bit late
in the year. One crazy idea is to use robots to individually monitor hundreds
or thousands of different plants. I actually looked into doing this and it's
by no means trivial. Land to experiment with isn't the limiting factor.

------
dasickis
My startup builds specialized autonomous vehicles for warehouses & factories
but would be interested in experimenting in outdoor systems for agriculture.

I understand that John Deere and other companies have some amazing systems
they've developed. Our goal is to produce vehicles that are easy to install,
deploy, and low-cost.

------
zkirill
This is a great offer! If someone is interested in using this land to build a
high tech farm to supply the Chicago area then we'd love to work with you on
ways we can push the availability, product and price information out to local
buyers and distributors in real-time.

------
thoughtpalette
Really generous and cool of you guys to do this! That's personally too far out
for me, but I could see a bunch of people taking you up on this!

It'd be cool to have a site that lists current projects on the land so we can
follow and see progress.

------
kentf
This is a perfect opportunity to crowdfund something really cool.

If you use Crowdtilt, you don't pay any fees since they are a YC company. Just
use this promo code: hnfriends

[https://www.crowdtilt.com](https://www.crowdtilt.com)

------
HeyLaughingBoy
Even though it's ag-zoned, be sure you can add animals. Crops, sure, but
adding animals to a farm surrounded by suburbia _when the animals weren 't
there already_ may be against that specific zoning.

~~~
syedkarim
In this case, we can go willy-nilly animal-crazy. Lake County fully supports
the areas agricultural heritage, so as long as they are legitimately farm-
related, animals are not a problem.

------
leeoniya
hmmm. we're doing greenhouse climate control, irrigation and nutrient dosing
for hydroponics. i'm gonna shoot my buddy an email to see if he's interested.

~~~
ph0rque
Cool! What's the state of the art in greenhouse climate control (preferably
passive)? Is there a PassivHous equivalent standard for greenhouses?
([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive_house](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive_house))

------
PatrickGW
Great idea. Don't have an experiments in mind but would love to get involved
with any projects that do get accepted. How can I drop you a mail?

~~~
syedkarim
Thanks! Contact information is in my profile.

------
jasonlaramburu
Check out Www.edyn.com. We are a YC company making smart agricultural sensors.
Would love to chat. Email us at info@edyn.com

------
patcon
if you're excited about decentralized blockchain tech like Bitcoin and
darkwallet, you should look up amir taaki and unsystem. they're looking for
space:

[https://wiki.unsystem.net/en/index.php/UnSYSTEM/Opensource_c...](https://wiki.unsystem.net/en/index.php/UnSYSTEM/Opensource_city)

~~~
StavrosK
Why do people keep mentioning Dark Wallet? It looks like another wallet client
to me.

~~~
patcon
I think the main draw is that the wallet is being built with first-class
citizenship for many of the features that provide maximum anonymity. Most
other wallets seem to be implementing those things slowly, without a real
roadmap. Also, those building darkwallet are some of the folks who spec'd out
the BIPs for those features (if i understand correctly).

"Features" being these: [1]

\- built-in implementation of COINJOIN protocol for mixing

\- STEALTH ADDRESSES for address re-use. As i understand it for darkwallet,
the sender can take one recipient address (like a public donation address),
and create a dummy transaction with data that only the receiver can decode,
containing a private key with the funds. So the receiver scans the blockchain
looking for the dummy data, and can claim it, but it looks like two separate
transactions. Kinda like a drop-box with cryptic public note telling that the
recipient will recognize as a clue to where the money is :) [2]

\- MULTISIG - being done elsewhere, but prioritized highly here.

\- various UX stuff like pockets and identities to help ensure that separate
histories never mistakenly mix

Still investigating it all, so likely got some stuff a little mixed up

[1]:
[https://wiki.unsystem.net/en/index.php/DarkWallet/Alpha#Intr...](https://wiki.unsystem.net/en/index.php/DarkWallet/Alpha#Introduction)

[2]: Really good reddit explanation
[http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/24fy4v/dark_wallet_...](http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/24fy4v/dark_wallet_try_it_out/ch6siqr)

~~~
StavrosK
Huh, that's a very nice list, thank you for the response!

------
leashless
For the cabin, if I may suggest, [http://hexayurt.com](http://hexayurt.com)

------
kellyreid
I live in Chicago and grow my own food in my yard. I'm highly interested in
this.

How can we talk further?

~~~
syedkarim
gmail: syed.f.karim

------
loucal
Is all the land cleared or are there some wooded areas? Is any of the land
sloped?

~~~
syedkarim
Since it had previously been used as a tree farm, the land has few large
clearings. Some portions are mildly wooded. It the midwest--no real slopes.
But there is a gradient.

------
Jacky800
This is awesome idea. Hats off to syedkarim.

------
grimtrigger
This sounds like the perfect place to start building my giant mechanical kill
bots

------
technotony
Do you want some genetically engineered glowing plants? www.glowingplant.com

