This Solar Powered Robot Plants Trees in the Amazon

This solar-powered robot creates a hole in the soil with a trowel, then picks up tiny seeds with a pincer before planting and covering them. YuMi was first released in 2015 by ABB Robotics to help in factories, but an NGO called Junglekeepers has taken it deep into the Amazon to an area of Peru known as Madre de Dios. The journey took 3 days.

Peru has the second-largest area of the Amazon rainforest after Brazil, along with forest clearance to plant coca, the raw ingredient for cocaine. The Vice-President of Junglekeepers is himself a former logger turned conservationist.

YuMi can plant 600 seeds in a single morning, roughly 2 soccer pitches’ worth. It’s powered by sunlight and connected by solar satellite wifi to a base in Sweden for updates. Junglekeepers want to set up more robot bases in Amazon communities, which could enable thousands of seeds to be planted daily.