A new class of plant growth chamber for plant science research.
Available to order now!
For information on ordering a Grobot α plant growth chamber, email us at info@groboticsystems.com or call us on 0114 360 2221.
Partners
Customers
Brochure
Download the brochure for our Grobot α plant growth chamber, available to order now.
Grobotic Systems Grobot α brochure.
Media
Our Grobot α chambers have a one-click timelapse creation tool, letting you produce great videos to embed in your presentations. Here are some example timelapse videos made by us and some of our customers.
Colleagues at the University of York grew aeroponic "Micro Tom" tomatoes in a Grobot α at a constant 24°C and 200 μmol light for 16hrs a day. The nutrients were at EC 2.0 with the aeroponic mist generator running for 15 minutes every hour. The timelapse shows 81 days of growth!
Crop Health and Protection (CHAP) published a video of lettuce Little Gem growing in one of their Grobot chambers.
We made a timelapse of tomato plants growing in our Grobot α plant growth chamber for 10 days. See how fast they grow! Tomato varieties Sakura and Sungold were grown in coco coir in 9cm pots and were fertigated 3 times a day with nutrients at EC 1.5. PAR was set to 200 μmol/m/s for 16 hours a day and the environment was maintained at 23°C and 60% relative humidity day and night.
Luke Fountain and Harry Wright at the University of Sheffield, and Alexis Moschopoulos from Grobotic Systems, worked together on an outreach programme about growing plants in space. Here is a great video on the topic!
Downloads
We recently presented our proposal for an open source plant growth protocol at the 2021 UK Controlled Environment Users’ Group Annual Meeting.
An open-source plant growth protocol.
We presented a poster on the open source protocol and on some data from an earlier version of our Grobot α chamber at the 2020 PhenomUK meeting at the National Physical Laboratory. This included data on uniformity of temperature, airflow, and photon flux density measured in our chamber. It also included images and analysis of uniform Arabidopsis growth in a P24 tray.
A new class of plant growth chamber and a proposed open source plant growth protocol.
Press and Social:
January 29th 2021 - Article in Vertical Farming Daily
We are very happy to have a great article published about our company in Vertical Farming Daily. Thanks to Rebekka Boekhout for the article!
August 7th 2020 - Grobotic Systems case study
Our story was featured in a case study published by MD Club Sheffield. The study really nicely describes what we are doing at Grobotic Systems, and how we are working with students and academics at Sheffield universities to help us develop a better product.
October 11th 2019 - AGROVerSe in the news!
Our story was reported by several news sources both in Scotland and around the world: The Herald, The National, insider.co.uk, HortiDaily.com, and Optics.org.
October 7th 2019 - UKRI Case Study
The AGROVerSe project was featured on the UK Research and Innovation website as an example of an innovative technology funded as part of the Transforming Food Production Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund.
October 26th - Rotherham Business News
Our business, and our participation in the Y-Accelerator Programme, was covered here.
September 26th 2018 - More Press Releases
The UK Steel press release was also published in unLTD. Business, and the front page of the Rotherham Gazette.
September 25th 2018 - UK Steel Press Release
Our company has been featured in a press release by UK Steel Enterprise. Read it here!
Events:
Upcoming:
Previous:
28th to 29th June 2023 - The STEMM Village at the Royal Norfolk Show - Grobot α and other plant growth technologies demonstration
Some of the team will be at the Royal Norfolk Show to show off the Grobot α and a new product for growing plants at home and at schools. Come and say hello!
6th February 2023 - John Innes Centre - Grobot α demonstration
26th January 2023 - Fraunhofer UK/CAP 10th Anniversary - TIC building Glasgow
30th September 2022 - University of Durham - Grobot α demonstration
29th September 2022 - Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh - Grobot α demonstration
September 11th to 14th 2022 - NCERA-101 International Meeting at the Controlled Environment Agriculture Center, University of Arizona
Alexis was invited to speak about the Grobot chamber and a proposed open source plant growth protocol. It was his first time in Arizona and loved the conference! Thanks to the organisers for the invitation, and to the UK CEUG executive committee for sponsoring his travel.
September 6th to 7th 2022 - UK CEUG Meeting at the University of Birmingham
Alexis attended the annual UK CEUG meeting at the University of Birmingham and brought a demonstration Grobot α chamber. It was great to see everyone in the community and to hear the talks about forestry research.
July 12th to 15th 2022 - Great Yorkshire Show with the University of Sheffield
We are joining our friends and collaborators Harry Wright, Luke Fountain and others from Sheffield University at the Great Yorkshire Show. We will be talking about growing food in space and will have some of our SpaCEA cabinets that we developed for the Pop-Up University in September 2021. We’ll also have one of our Grobot α chambers on display!
June 14th 2022 - Royal Society, London - Fraunhofer UK and Fraunhofer Centre for Applied Photonics 10th Anniversary
We will be joining Henry Bookey, John Macarthur and colleagues at the Fraunhofer UK and Fraunhofer Centre for Applied Photonics 10th Anniversary at the Royal Society in London. We’ll have a Grobot α chamber with some red and green basil grown over the last few weeks. We’ll also remote in to our AGROVerSe chamber with the multispectral imaging system that Henry, John, and Vasili Savitski built as part of our Innovate UK project.
June 20th 2022 - University of Cambridge Department of Plant Sciences - Teaching Laboratory
Alexis will be demonstrating a Grobot α chamber at the ground floor Teaching Laboratory. He should be there from 10am till the end of the day. If you want to see one of our chambers in person and talk about how it might be useful in your research, come and visit!
Our vision:
Helping to meet the challenges of global climate change through enabling the transition to predictive plant biology.
About Us:
Founded in January 2018, we are a team of scientists and engineers working to build a new class of plant growth chamber to enable discoveries in plant science. We have sold chambers to scientists at the University of Leeds and Rothamsted Research. Our newest chamber is the Grobot α and is available to order.
In April 2019 we began a two year Innovate UK-funded project to develop an Advanced Growth Chamber for use in optimising vertical farming systems. We worked on this project together with colleagues at Fraunhofer Centre for Applied Photonics, Stockbridge Technology Centre, and the University of Sheffield. The project ended in December 2022 with the successful development of the AGROVerSe chamber and a demonstration of its capabilities by colleagues at Stockbridge and Sheffield.
Dr Alexis Moschopoulos (co-founder and managing director) is a plant geneticist with over 13 years' experience in academia and private sector plant science research. While working with a wide range of plant species, he developed the idea for this new class of plant growth chamber to help enable the transition to predictive plant biology. Connect with Alexis on LinkedIn here.
Richard Banks (co-founder and chief technology officer) is an electronics and software engineer with extensive experience in the IT sector. He is an enthusiastic and creative maker of things, and cleverly designs all the chamber circuit boards and electronics.
Andrew Merson (mechanical engineering lead) is a Sheffield University graduate with experience in custom lab automation and hydropower design. He‘s into agroecology, green woodworking and foraging, with a particular fascination for fungi.
Matthew Tulley (non-executive director) is supporting us with his wealth of experience in mechanical engineering, product development, and business management. Having recently sold his former company Single Use Surgical Ltd., he is currently working to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere with his new company Solid Carbon Storage.
Our office/workshop is located on Brick Street in Crookes, Sheffield, UK.
News:
September 22nd 2021 - Growing plants in space!
Over the last few months we’ve been collaborating with Luke Fountain and Dr Harry Wright from the University of Sheffield on a project exploring growing food in space. Harry has been working on a new type of foam as a hydroponic medium to replace rockwool in horticulture, and is interested to use this foam for growing food on the International Space Station, and eventually on the Moon and Mars. We received funding from the Institute for Sustainable Food to produce a pair of model plant growth chambers to present the idea to the Pop-Up University event on the 18th - 19th of September. We also recorded a podcast, and Human Studio produced an awesome video to go with the event!
August 12th 2021 - Delivery of two AGROVerSe chambers to University of Sheffield
We have delivered two of our advanced AGROVerSe chambers to colleagues at the University of Sheffield. For this preliminary experiment, we are growing six pots of red-leaf and six pots of green-leaf basil in each chamber, fed and watered through an integrated flood and drain system. Using built-in tuneable LEDs, one chamber is set to 250 µmol 4000K white light, and the other chamber is set to 200 µmol 660nm red and 50 µmol 455nm blue light. We will look at uniformity of growth within each chamber and see what effect the different light treatments have on basil physiology, yield, and quality. Thanks to Emily Harrison at the University of Sheffield for running these experiments with us!
August 1st 2021 - New addition to our team
We are very excited to be joined by Rowan Eccles who started this month as an assembly technician. Rowan will be in charge of assembly of our Grobot chambers, as well as testing and calibrating them before they are despatched.
May 6th 2021 - Kickstart Scheme
We are looking for a motivated and enthusiastic person to help assemble our plant growth chambers at our workshop in Sheffield. Please click here to read details of the position. Please note: applicants must be eligible under the Kickstart Scheme.
Update: This position has been filled.
November 30th 2020 - Prototypes delivered to the Graphene Engineering Innovation Centre
We delivered two of our latest prototype chambers to Dr Beenish Siddique as part of our collaboration with AEH Innovative Hydrogel Ltd., a startup based in the Graphene Engineering Innovation Centre in Manchester. We are excited to be part of this project!
October 22nd 2020 - Prototypes delivered to Rothamsted Research
We are very excited to finally deliver three of our prototype Alpha 4 chambers to the CHAP Phenotyping Lab based at Rothamsted Research. We look forward to Dr Tom Ashfield and Dr Harry Langford and their teams exploring the capabilities of these machines!
July 27th 2020 - Santander Internship Programme summer intern
George Pearce, a final year Mechanical Engineering student from the University of Sheffield, joined our team to develop our chamber manufacturing protocol and lead in the manufacture of our latest prototype chambers. Thanks to the team at UoS careers department for organising this, and Santander Internship Programme for the funding.
Update: George meticulously documented and improved our manufacturing process while building our two latest prototype chambers for deployment with our colleagues at AEH Innovative Hydrogel.
17th July 2020 - GelPonic consortium receives Innovate UK funding
We are working with the GelPonic consortium led by AEH Innovative Hydrogel on the development of a novel graphene-based plant growth medium and smart vertical farming system. Consortium members include agricultural technology scientists CHAP and controlled environment agriculture specialists Stockbridge Technology Centre. This looks to be an exciting project!
14th July 2020 - Design Futures collaboration funded through the Sheffield Innovation Programme
Our exciting and productive collaboration with Design Futures has been completed. Thanks to Anthony Jones, Tom Fisher and their colleagues for carrying out this project investigating various design for manufacturing ideas to help us scale-up production, and thanks to the team at Sheffield Innovation Project for the funding to make this collaboration possible.
July 1st 2020 - Hallam Internship Programme summer interns
We are joined by two final year students from Sheffield Hallam University, as part of the Hallam Internship Programme, who will carry out this 100 hour internship remotely. Amardeep Singh is a Mechanical Engineering student who will work on one of several projects to improve existing products or develop prototypes for new products. Gustavo Sánchez is a Software Engineer who will work on our chamber control platform user interface. Thanks to the careers team at SHU for this opportunity!
Update: Amardeep carried out in-depth background research and designed a prototype for a secret side project of ours. We’re looking forward to assembling it and testing it in the lab! Gustavo worked on some graphical elements for our chamber control platform which will feature in the next version of our user interface.
26th June 2020 - Innovate UK Continuity Grant awarded
Our application for an Innovate UK Continuity Grant to support our AGROVeRSe project during these challenging times has been successful. We are very grateful for this support.
January 31st 2020 - Prototypes delivered to Leeds University
We delivered two Alpha 4 Plant Growth Chambers to Tom Bennett at the Centre for Plant Science at the University of Leeds. Tom and his lab are very excited to be able run key experiments using our chamber technology.
May 7th 2019 - And then we were four
We are very excited to be joined by Andrew Merson, the latest addition to our team working on our Innovate UK project. Andrew is a mechanical engineer and plant science enthusiast, and will be developing the chamber HVAC and mechanical systems.
April 9th 2019 - Grobotic Systems moves to Sheffield
In order to accommodate our expanding team, we have moved from our office at Fusion@Magna to an exciting space in the heart of Crookes, Sheffield. We are very grateful for all the support we received from everyone at RIDO and Fusion@Magna, and super excited to be starting the next chapter of our journey in our new offices.
April 1st 2019 - Innovate UK project begins
We are very excited to start the Innovate UK project to design and build our Advanced Growth Chamber. We are delighted to be joined by Gareth Coleman, a full-stack developer and aquaponics engineer, who will design the AGROVerSe firmware, software, and data architectures.
February 7th 2019 - We are hiring!
To support our Innovate UK-funded project, we are looking for two highly talented individuals to join our team. We are looking to hire a Mechanical Engineer Project Lead and a Systems Architect Project Lead. For any questions about these positions, or to discuss other opportunities for working together, email alexis@groboticsystems.com.
February 7th 2019 - Innovate UK Funding
Great news! We were recently awarded an Innovate UK grant to support the development of our advanced growth chamber for the optimisation of vertical farming systems. We are lead partners in a consortium with colleagues from The Fraunhofer Centre for Applied Photonics, Stockbridge Technology Centre, and the University of Sheffield.
November 5th 2018 - Alpha 2 Prototype
Our colleague at the University of Sheffield, David Pardo in the lab of Professor Jurriaan Ton, has been trialling our alpha 2 prototype. So far, so good!
October 15th 2018 - Innovate UK AgriTech Investment Showcase
After several pitch training sessions delivered by KTN over the summer, we were very excited to be one of fourteen up-and-coming companies to pass the selection process and be invited to pitch at the Innovate UK AgriTech Investment Showcase 2018 at Prince Philip House, London.
July 24th to 25th 2018 - OpenPlant Forum
We were very excited to show our alpha prototype to a great group of plant synthetic biologists from around the world at the 2018 OpenPlant Forum. The forum was held at the John Innes Centre in Norwich, UK, and saw a range of exciting talks on various aspects of plant synthetic biology by scientists working on a number of plant species.
July 23rd 2018 - Patent Filed
We are very pleased to announce that our first patent covering an aspect of our innovative plant growth chamber has been filed.
July 16th 2018 - IMechE Summer Placement Student
Our team is joined by a talented third year Mechanical Engineering student from the University of Sheffield, Eric Cheok. Eric's seven week placement is sponsored by the IMechE Summer Placement programme.