Automated Water Supply for Plants

<!--## Inspiration

-->## What it does Using a soil moisture sensor, our device detects lower levels than normal, and automatically adds water. It can also detect if it fails (such as running out of water) or if water is being taken out of the enviroment faster than it is being put in by the device.

How we built it

We are using arduino to run the program, and we connected it to a moisture sensor, stepper motor, and LCD display. The motor was connected to a bottle with small holes in it, so that it could be flipped to start or stop flow. After attaching everything in place and a simple script, we connected a battery so it can run without an external supply.

Challenges we ran into

Getting the sensors to work was difficult. We first had a humidity sensor, and intended to make a shell so that it could measure the dirt. It worked in testing, but would likely not be reliable. Eventually, we found a soil moisture sensor, but it didn't have a library, so we just used analogRead and calibrated it manually. As a result, the unit of the numbers shown on screen is arbitrary.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

The moving bottle, and mounting it. It has to be rotated so that the holes are on the top or bottom, as necessary, but the only motor we could find was barely powerful enough to turn it. We reduced friction on the other end by using a polygonal 3d-printed block, and mounted the motor opposite.

What we learned

As is often the case, moving parts are the most complicated, but we also are using the arduino for two things at the same time: driving the motor and writing to the display. Multitasking is a major component of modern operating systems, and it was interesting to work on it in the simple case here.

What's next for Automated Water Supply for Plants

The watering system could be improved. There exist valves that are meant to be electronically operated, or a human designed valve and a servo, which would allow us to link it to a municipal water system (or at least make it more reliable).

Built With

• arduino