Rooted Together · Mar 2023 – May 2025
Project RTSHS
A vertical hydroponic system that runs its own nutrient cycle.
- Role
- Founder & CEO, Rooted Together
- Status
- Deployed
- Team
- Built with Elif, Shreyas and one other Rooted Together member.
Flood and drain: the pump fills the column, roots breathe as it empties
Drag to orbit
- $0K
- raised by Rooted Together in funding and in-kind resources
- 0
- first in-person workshop, Mission Urban Farming
The Rooted Together Sustainable Hydroponic System is a vertical farming tower with Arduino-controlled pumps that automate nutrient delivery and optimise plant growth. It was the first thing Rooted Together built, and the model for turning rooftops into hydroponic labs.
01
What it is
A vertical tower of planting tiers fed from a reservoir at the base. A pump drives nutrient solution up through the column on a schedule set by an Arduino, so the system keeps plants fed without someone standing over it. Vertical stacking means a rooftop footprint grows far more than the same area of soil.
02
The cycle
The Arduino runs the pump on a timed cycle: fill the column, let it drain back to the reservoir, rest, repeat. Roots get nutrient solution and air in turns, which is what makes a hydroponic tower outgrow soil.
03
Why it matters
Rooted Together is youth-led: students design, build and run the systems. RTSHS gave the organisation a repeatable build to teach from and to put on rooftops, and it is the design the nonprofit grew around. Three years on, the organisation operates without founder dependency, which was the point.
Hardware and software
- Structure
- Vertical tower, five planting tiers
- Control
- Arduino-driven pump scheduling
- Delivery
- Automated nutrient dosing from a base reservoir