01
Origin condition
Why it exists
Food resilience tools are often either fragile hobby systems or expensive infrastructure that hides maintenance assumptions. Parallax Mendala explores a modular rotational grower that can teach, produce, monitor itself, and scale from a portable unit to a larger community system.
Can an automated grower remain understandable, repairable, and honest about yield, cost, labor, and biological uncertainty?
02
Working system
What it does
- ✿Rotates modular growth zones
Organizes planting, lighting, irrigation, filtration, and harvest access around a durable circular structure.
- ⌁Automates bounded routines
Uses local sensing and control for water, light, climate, rotation, and alerts while preserving manual override.
- ▤Records production evidence
Tracks crop, cycle, inputs, interventions, failures, harvest, and assumptions rather than advertising ideal yield as fact.
03
System anatomy
Architecture
Mendala combines physical modules, crop plan, water and nutrient loop, light and climate zones, rotational access, local controller, RLDS telemetry, and SignalBridge production receipts.
Grow architecture
Full-size and portable structural concepts with modular crop positions.
Life-support loop
Water, nutrients, filtration, lighting, airflow, cleaning, and failure handling.
Local controller
Laptop or Raspberry Pi-class control, sensors, schedules, alerts, and override.
Yield ledger
Crop assumptions, cycle time, losses, labor, inputs, and measured output.
04
Present tense
Current state
Parallax Mendala is recorded as Exploring at the Sprout stage. The inventory currently marks 4 artifact lanes Ready, 2 Partial, and 2 Missing.
B3 Tier 1 room draft · Core canon · Exploratory evidence · public candidate
05
Honest edges
Known limitations
- No physical prototype or measured crop cycle is represented in the current record.
- Yield depends strongly on crop, cultivar, climate, light, disease, operator skill, and local conditions.
- Food-contact materials, electrical safety, water quality, and sanitation require engineering and regulatory review.
- Cost and production projections remain estimates until a prototype bill of materials and repeated grow trials exist.
06
Claim boundary · v1.1.0
What we are—and are not—saying
Full-size and portable Master Design Specifications, brochure visuals, initial cost thinking, and production-model questions have been documented.
Mendala does not claim verified yield, a fixed build cost, food-safety certification, commercial availability, perpetual operation, or suitability for every crop or jurisdiction.
07
Development memory
Ledger
B3-MEN-001-01Parallax Mendala full-size Master Design Specification assembled.
✓ DocumentedB3-MEN-001-02Laptop or Raspberry Pi-class portable concept added to the family.
✓ DocumentedB3-MEN-001-03Tier 1 resilience room drafted with prototype and yield boundaries.
✓ DraftCurated project receipts · source-file binding and human review remain pending
08
Directional, revisable
Roadmap
Freeze the prototype crop and scale
Choose one physical size, crop set, climate assumption, and measurable success criterion.
Build and instrument one unit
Record bill of materials, assembly time, failures, inputs, labor, and harvest over repeated cycles.
Publish model-specific projections
Update cost and yield ranges only from measured prototype receipts and clearly stated assumptions.
10
B10 evidence trail
Featured evidence
Registry-grounded trail
No primary source package is bound yet. The public trail is limited to the verified field card and public Genome snapshot.
Parallax Mendala — Project Field Card
B4-generated visual identity card built directly from the reviewed constellation registry.
Open bound artifactParallax Mendala — Public Genome Snapshot
Public-safe JSON snapshot of the current project registry or expanded Project Genome.
Open bound artifact11
Publication intake
Artifacts & sources
Parallax Mendala Master Design Specification
Full-size architecture and operating concept.
View archive recordarchive:intake/mendala-master-specPortable Mendala specification
Laptop or Raspberry Pi-class variant.
View archive recordarchive:intake/mendala-portable-specInstrumented grow prototype
Required before verified yield or cost claims.
View archive recordarchive:intake/mendala-measured-prototypeSource basis
archive:intake/parallax-mendala/source-basisarchive-canonportal:project/parallax-mendala@v0.4-b3planning-inventoryReview: Canon, claims, privacy, accessibility, and publication review · pending
12
Move with evidence
Next actions
The next meaningful evidence is a measured crop cycle, not a prettier projection.
reviewReview the artifact registerSee which source packages, visuals, demonstrations, and public links are actually ready.
secondaryTrace related projectsFollow documented dependencies and neighboring systems without inventing connections.