Some call it a Roomba for weeds. Or a farmhand RoboCop. The students of Olin College of Engineering call their creation the PhoenixBot. Hoping to help small New England farms with the strenuous ...

A robot the size and shape of a square kitchen table wheels over a row of seedlings. It scans the ground with camera "eyes," then stops. A small probe lowers from the middle of the robot, homes in on ...