Why not use the space we have in and around the house for a nice garden? Soil-less gardens apparently can be very nice to grow our own food. We can use the rooftop and the balcony. What about a beanpipe, a pvc-garden on the roof, a small portable greenhouse, and so many other techniques we can use? (Search)
Casa Robino
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list of constructable wind-turbines
a list of constructable wind-turbines is right here at instructables.com. Thanks star for the tip (!).
open hardware platform
i am not quite sure how an electronic control system can help a garden, but i can certainly build one (or assist others, as i will be back in the states). microprocessor programming is fairly easy, and opens up the fun a exciting world of hardware modification. more on this when i return.
Open hardware & guerrilla gardening
An Icelandic friend of mine shared some links of things his friends are onto. Something like these open source* circuit boards could be tweaked to measure / control / whatever is needed by the gardens. So the next travelling electrician / circuit board designer would have something to tinker with ;)
* that is, you can modify the hardware and create your own software to build a custom-made device for pretty much anything a set of transistors can do, then combine with set of external things like light / air pressure / thermal sensors to get info in.
From the website:
"Arduino can be used to develop interactive objects, taking inputs from a variety of switches or sensors, and controlling a variety of lights, motors, and other physical outputs. Arduino projects can be stand-alone, or they can be communicate with software running on your computer (e.g. Flash, Processing, MaxMSP.) The boards can be assembled by hand or purchased preassembled; the open-source IDE can be downloaded for free. "
Wind-ball
http://www.homeenergy.se/vindkraft.aspx oe
http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.homeenergy.se%2... (if you can't read swedish)
One possible design to reduce vibration, noise, and all problems with standard designs. May be worth looking in to.
Another one available in the US
Rooftop wind turbine
Another one in development in Australia
Rooftop wind turbine
energy ball
That one looks awesome. Thanks so much for looking into this, hopefully one day we can actually manage to build one, and move this house again a step further towards self-sustainability!