Inspiration
Michael Reeves' Screaming Roomba video and the paper "Plants emit informative airborne sounds under stress" (Khait et. al.)
What it does
When your plant is over or under watered, it emits an annoying high pitched sound that gets louder until you water your plant appropriately. Aside from being a novelty product, the device also can allow those with visual impairment to actively care for their plants by providing auditory input about their plant's health.
The optimal watering moisture level and deadband width can be set by two knobs.
How I built it
Arduino Uno, SparkFun Soil Moisture Sensor, and Dexter Industries Grove Buzzer
Challenges I ran into
Originally, I wanted to program the audio to be an actual human scream. Unfortunately, the hardware available was insufficient to allow for this.
What I learned
Moisture control sensors don't work well and your hackathon neighbors will be annoyed if you make an annoying hack.
What's next for housplant.io
A nice enclosure and battery powered microprocessor to make it portable, along with other sensory outputs to indicate plant unhealth.
Slidedeck
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/14UttaSaUXQIgGfnmJPvkZLO44vtV07pPoEj7o0Q5_u4/edit?usp=sharing
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