[Eric Dirgahayu] wanted to explore underwater with some sensors and cameras. First, he needed a platform to carry them. That led to his Arduino-controlled swimming fish. The fish is made from PVC and some waterproof servos. From the video (see below) it isn’t clear how much control the fish has, but it does swim with an undulating motion like a real fish.

The included software allows for infrared control (so clean water is a must) and there is a ballast tank for buoyancy. The site has several videos and tabs that show different aspects of the project. We found the site a little difficult to navigate, so to help you out, you can go straight to the interesting bits of the construction. Here’s the electronics, too.

If you need a home for your robot fish, we’ve seen plenty of high-tech tanks. If you prefer your submersibles a little more futuristic, you can always try Star Trek.

Build this aquaponic garden to bring your veggies and your fish tank into perfectly sustainable harmony. Then use Arduino to take your set-up to the next level.

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[Helios Labs] recently published version two of their 3D printed fish feeder. The system is designed to feed their fish twice a day. The design consists of nine separate STL files and can be mounted to a planter hanging above a fish tank in an aquaponics system. It probably wouldn’t take much to modify the design to work with a regular fish tank, though.

The system is very simple. The unit is primarily a box, or hopper, that holds the fish food. Towards the bottom is a 3D printed auger. The auger is super glued to the gear of a servo. The 9g servo is small and comes with internal limiters that only allow it to rotate about 180 degrees. The servo must be opened up and the limiters must be removed in order to enable a full 360 degree rotation. The servo is controlled by an Arduino, which can be mounted directly to the 3D printed case. The auger is designed in such a way as to prevent the fish food from accidentally entering the electronics compartment.

You might think that this project would use a real-time clock chip, or possibly interface with a computer to keep the time. Instead, the code simply feeds the fish one time as soon as it’s plugged in. Then it uses the “delay” function in order to wait a set period of time before feeding the fish a second time. In the example code this is set to 28,800,000 milliseconds, or eight hours. After feeding the fish a second time, the delay function is called again in order to wait until the original starting time.

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If you’ve ever walked around West Oakland, farming probably doesn’t come to mind. That’s because it’s the fifth busiest shipping port in the United States. But that hasn’t stopped maker Eric Maundu from feeding himself with locally-grown food from his aquaponic gardens, a combination of fish farming and hydroponic planting. Frequently proclaiming, “I am not a farmer,” Eric has applied his robotics and software background to making gardens smart.

“I feel knowledge of electronics and software programming makes me a better farmer than just having a hoe. Gardens that can communicate for themselves using the internet can lead to exchanging of ideas in ways that were not possible before. I can test, for instance, whether the same tomato grows better in Oakland or the Sahara Desert given the same conditions. Then I can share the same information with farmers in Iceland and China.”

His company, Kijani Grows, sells kits, components, installs gardens throughout the Bay Area, and teaches classes on aquaponics. This inspiring video from fair companies gives an epic walkthrough (note the length of the video – how leet!) of his various indoor & outdoor systems and designs:

Fans of Douglas Adams will no doubt catch the reference to The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy in the title of Becky Stern’s latest project, The Babel Fish Language Toy. This sound- and RFID-enabled Arduino project with a crafty enclosure helps you learn foreign languages with RFID flash cards. When you bring a flash card near the fish’s tongue, you’ll hear the pronunciation of the word, which comes from .WAV files that you pre-load onto the SD card. And naturally, a full how-to writeup and video will help you along the way should you decide to make your own. Xie xie Becky!