Bloom Buddy

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  Bloom Buddy Logo

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  Bloom Buddy Homepage

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  Bloom Buddy Selfwatering Device

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Inspiration

As we progress through our fall semester, my group has found our lives getting busier and busier; So much so that the plants we care for get neglected. We find ourselves walking by stores and markets passing up the plants we see, aware of the demise of our plant friends back home. So, we decided to make technology that senses when our plants need to be watered and automatically water them. Not only does this make watering automated, but we also created an app that keeps track of the plant's moisture level, brightness, and temperature.

What it does

Sensors in the plant soil send data to the app and the hardware, telling the device to water the plant and sending information to the app. This then shows the user the plant's information such as temperature, brightness, and moisture level.

How we built it

The hardware involved using an esp32 microcontroller that connects to various sensors and servos. The logic behind the hardware was made with the Arduino ide and UART serial connections that allow for potential app connections. The watering can itself is made out of a cup with a hole in it so that there is a low flow of water reaching the plant. The software side included the use of firebase for database purposes and flutter for actual site creation.

Challenges we ran into

As we worked on building the app, many problems surfaced. First, we tried implementing our Flutter code with Arduino, but ended up having to scrap it because of Bluetooth and Wi-Fi connectivity issues. Additionally, our repository pushing/pulling ended up crashing the code, and at the last minute we had to delete most of the code and create a new app page from scrap. There was trouble implementing a Wi-Fi or Bluetooth based connection from the app, so in the end we decided to just use UART serial connections.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Despite our difficult challenges, we still pulled through and submitted a project. As it is all of our first hackathons, creating the concept itself and watching it slowly become reality was satisfying to say the least.

What we learned

We familiarized ourselves with Flutter, which many of us were completely new to. We also learned more about hardware and how to connect it to software, especially when it comes to using external libraries and how to properly flash and implement code on an embedded system.

What's next for Bloom Buddy

We are going to expand the app to include user accounts in order to save their plants. Additionally, we plan on implementing a function to add plants so that the user can keep track of more plants.

Built With

• arduino
• esp32
• firebase
• flutter
• sensors
• uart