Meet Francesco, the talking house plant made by four students from ANU

No one knows this more than four ANU students who, as part of a final project, created Francesco the talking house plant, to reduce innocent house plant deaths.

Rebecca Faurby, Jasper Lang, Brinda Murlikrishna and Michelle Turner created the pot as part of their "making creative and critical technologies: physical computing for art and design" class, after recognising similarities among previous projects they worked on.

"[The class is all] about using coding and circuitry technologies to build interventions on some ongoing issues that we feel are important," Ms Faurby said.

"Three out of the four members in our group had already created plant-related technology in a previous project, and I had created a security system using motion sensing. So we naturally felt we could create something out of our four individual projects."

In simple terms, Francesco is "a smart plant pot that monitors the health and conditions of the plant", Mr Lang said.

"He has a cute animated face which reacts to your presence and lets you know when he needs more water or sunlight."

Made out of a 3D-printed plant pot and an LCD screen face, different kinds of sensors are what bring the plant to life, designed with the intention of bringing communication between the plant and the owner, he said.

"One of the ways he does this is by measuring the tiny electrical signals produced by the plant and interpreting them into how the plant may be 'feeling'. This field is called plant electrophysiology, and is being studied for things like agriculture and environmental science," he said.

"We are incorporating this idea in a less scientific, more artistic way to try and make visible the internal lives of plants. For example, during the night when the plant's electrical activity is typically lower it might put Francesco to sleep.

"Whereas higher electrical activity from being healthy, being watered or being placed in sunlight - in combination with our other environmental sensors - will make Francesco more lively."

If the sensors within the pot detect Francesco's levels of water in the soil or surrounding sunlight go below a certain level, he will let you know by telling you directly, Ms Murlikrishna said.

"For example, if the soil is dry, the sensor will send that signal to Francesco, and he will reply with, 'Hey, I'm thirsty' and display a sad expression on his LCD display," she said.

He even dances along to his favourite song, Toxic, by Britney Spears, she said.

With an already existing interest in plants and nature, the students said Francesco's creation was influenced by the unbalanced relationship between humans and nature.

"The broader goal of this project was to improve human-plant relationships and showing people plants are more living than they may seem. Often this goes unrecognised in our lives, and many of us don't pay attention to our plants," Ms Murlikrishna said.

"Some of us, me included, have forgotten to water our plants ... [but] I truly believe that Francesco has really helped bring more attention to this and encourage us to spend more time getting to know our house plants and what they need to grow.

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"However, I guess a question that we should ask ourselves is, 'Why do we need to give plants human characteristics for us to understand them, and to connect with them'? This is something we would like to explore in the future."

While the project is over, the students continue to consider the best ways to keep Francesco's legacy going.

"In future, we thought about replicating the pot for different of types of plants, or potentially connecting him to an app that gives you a notification on your phone of what he needs if you are not around to hear him," Ms Faurby said.

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