Interview with one of the startup, plant trees with copter

My article about the startup BioCarbon Engineering offering adapted for a large-scale tree planting drones, it has aroused the interest of readers and has generated many questions. Let me remind you that this company is planning to plant a billion trees per year.

For the landing plan to use the copter that will throw a capsule containing germinated seeds of trees. The landing will take place at the pre-marked-up and map the territory. According to the company, the two operators drones per day to be able to plant 36,000 trees. The cost of the work will not exceed 15% of the cost of planting conventional methods.



At my request, he agreed to answer questions Tengler Martin, one of the members of the core team.

The (survey): Do you have any working prototypes of the capsules for planting trees? B>
About (Twet): Yes, there are prototypes, unfortunately photos yet can not provide

Q: How did they manage to penetrate into the soil? B>
A: The pneumatic system will accelerate the capsule at the start, so that they reach a depth of on-

Q: What happens if the capsule is not votknёtsya into the ground and will lie on the surface? B>
A: This will reduce the chances of rooting. But it could happen either in the case of over-dry land (and in this land, and we are not going to plant trees), or if the capsule run into an obstacle (which is unlikely due to the thorough preparation and terrain mapping).

Q: How do you assess the percentage of successfully rooted capsules? B>
About: 80-90%

Q: Why did you decide to use the copter, and not, for example, small tractors, ATVs? B>
A: These tractors are used, but it is very difficult to get there, where there are no roads or where the terrain is rough enough. At the copter in this sense much more possibilities

Q: And if you just foresters will throw the capsule out of the truck? B>
A: This method is highly ineffective, so it makes no

Q: What is now trying to make up for cutting down trees? 15 billion instead of 26 billion planted felled each year. B>
A: Now only applies manual landing

Q: How did you get in the contest «Drones for good»? B>
A: We have made an application and we were lucky - we went to the semifinals and then the finals competition. There were a lot of interesting projects, they can be found online contest .

Q: How do you plan to finance the project? Money in fact not grow on trees
A: We have received initial funding from the Foundation Skoll Venture Foundation, are now discussing financial issues with other investors. Also we are looking for investors and clients who would be interested in our technology. In addition, we are working on kraudfandingovoy campaign, which is scheduled to happen in a couple of months. Wish us luck!

Source: geektimes.ru/post/250092/