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The soil moisture sensor in soil.
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The electrical system.
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The GUI the end user will interact with.
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The entire system along with the water sprinkling system.
Inspiration
Often we have found ourselves in a situation where we are away from our homes for extended periods causing our beloved plants to die from dehydration. Hence we came up with a cheap-to-build system that would allow us to monitor the health of our plants.
What it does
The system will monitor the soil moisture of the soil your plant inhabits as well as the humidity, pressure, and temperature of the surroundings. The system will then send the collected data to your computer where it can be displayed in an easy-to-read format. Furthermore, the application on the computer also allows you to manually select a good soil moisture range so that you can be informed when the soil moisture is below or above the specified range.
How we built it
We connected the sensors to an Arduino using a breadboard. We transferred the data from the sensors to a Python script on our computer using a Bluetooth electrical component. Then the Python script organized and displayed the data.
Challenges we ran into
Originally we planned to couple this system with a water sprinkling system that would water the plant automatically when the soil moisture fell below the specified range, but the stepper motor we were expected to use for the water sprinkling system did not output enough power to turn a water bottle, which we would use to water the plant, upside down. Hence, we were forced to look for other solutions, but in the end, we could not find any solutions and decided to just stick with the monitoring system.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
We are proud that we were able to finish the plant monitoring system and made an easy-to-read interface where the user could quickly look at the data collected by the system in real time.
What we learned
We learned that often many complications arise when creating a prototype, but there are times when one needs to make concessions to make the best of a bad situation.
What's next for Plant Care System
We would like to employ a much more powerful motor on our next prototype so that we could add the water sprinkling system allowing the plant to be automatically watered when need be.
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