MAKE Magazine and blog have a contest closing just before Christmas. For this project, they'll build a robotic plant seedling that will use its microcontroller brain to monitor its environment, and bloom when the time is right. The whole project will be housed in an ordinary plant pot, and thanks to an energy-efficient design, should be able to lie dormant for months, even years, on a single set of AA batteries. That means you could set it by your window and be delighted when it finally wakes up, or give it as a gift to a patient robot enthusiast for safekeeping.
You can check out the website http://makezine.com/makeitlast/ to find out more and to see the winners. You can also see if any projects come up that you would like to try out!
