Garden Buddy

Description of the hardware used (minus the camera)

Inspiration

Inspired by too many dead plants and the challenge of keeping them alive without years of gardening experience, Garden Buddy was created to make plant care simple and accessible. Our goal is to lower the gardening learning curve and help anyone care for their plants with confidence.

What it does

Garden Buddy is a smart plant-care system that helps users keep their plants healthy through automatic monitoring and maintenance. The physical device measures soil moisture, tracks water levels in the reservoir, and uses a webcam to monitor plant health. All of this is integrated into a clean, user-friendly app that makes plant care simple, intuitive, and stress-free, with a clean, user-friendly interface designed to make plant care simple and stress-free.

How we built it

Hardware: Moisture sensor, water level sensor, webcam, Raspberry Pi and Arduino to handle analog to digital conversion of data inputs. Frontend: Built with React and designed in Figma for a smooth user experience. Backend: Developed using MongoDB, C++, Python, OpenCV, and Gemini, powering real-time monitoring, AI disease detection, and user interaction.

Challenges we ran into

Throughout the weekend we ran into many problems. The Raspberry Pi we initially planned to use only supported digital inputs, while our sensors were analog, so we had to reroute all sensor data through an Arduino. On the software side, building the login system was tricky, with issues saving usernames and credentials correctly

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We successfully built a fully functional, usable system that integrates hardware, software, and AI. Seeing Garden Buddy go from an idea to a working prototype in just a weekend was incredibly rewarding.

What we learned

We learned how to quickly debug and adapt to unexpected challenges, use creative problem-solving, and integrate hardware and software components into a cohesive system. This project strengthened our skills in AI and full-stack development.

What's next for Garden Buddy

Future plans include built-in plant identification, improved disease detection, smart notifications, and further AI-powered gardening advice to make the system even smarter and more helpful for users.