plant buddy

App to monitor and advise about plant growth. It reads plant care data, monitors the environment, and updates users about the plant's well being. We hope to increase gardening accessibility for all.

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Inspiration

plant buddy was made with increasing gardening accessibility in mind. Some people may have trouble remembering when and how to take care of their plants, while others lack the means to learn about native plants in their area. With plant buddy, users have access to a wide variety of native American plants, and reminders are automatically scheduled to make understanding and caring for them easier. With this, we hope to make gardening more approachable for everyone, from people in urban areas who want houseplants to those who are trying to combat invasive species by planting native plants.

What it does

plant buddy monitors and advises its users about plant growth. The program reads and stores a database of American plants and keeps information about ideal temperatures, air pressures, humidities, and light levels to grow them. When the user runs the program, they will be prompted for inputs such as the plant type and stage of life. The program uses an arduino to read the environmental conditions around the plant and match the environmental information with the stored data to check how the plant is doing and give the user updates about plant care.

How we built it

We used a combination of python, matlab, and figma, and also hardware in the form of the arduino board. We first cleaned the data about various American plants in matlab. Then, we ran the arduino and python module to monitor the data. Using collected environmental data, the monitoring program would decide what information to send to the user. Finally, we made a mockup of an app interface in Figma.

Challenges we ran into

The biggest challenge we ran into was getting and moving data around. There are no very good complete sets of data about plant care, so it was difficult compiling the data from different formats. The other big challenge we faced was connecting the arduino to the computer. We found that the data from the arduino could not be saved without an SD card inserted, which we did not have access to.

What we learned

We all learned new skills creating software and hardware. Specifically, we did not have experience with designs and userflows, and being able to put a project from the ground up was a satisfying but challenging experience.

What's next for plant buddy

The next step for plant buddy is to implement the app interface. Having a packaged app makes it more accessible for everyone by increasing usability and convenience. We'd also like to be able to include types of plants from other regions.

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