SoilMate

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  Demo with input values from a sample report

Inspiration

Lack of knowledge in agriculture, particularly in soil quality and crop failure, is one of the most common barriers to farming / gardening. One of the ways farmers gain information in the fertility and quality of their soil is by ordering a soil test. A soil test report contains dense information that are difficult to understand for those who have no background in farming. SoilMate aims to improve literacy for soil analysis reports to encourage home gardening / farming by improving crop and soil education.

What it does

SoilMate is an application that acts as a “translator” to help with reading soil analysis reports. SoilMate will summarize the findings of the report, add a description for each data input, and provide references and recommendations for the next steps, thereby making soil analysis reports more accessible.

How we built it

We built SoilMate through the use of Python and its built-in Tkinter to create GUI elements.

Challenges we ran into

As beginner hackers from different backgrounds, we lack the skills and knowledge to create a complete prototype of SoilMate, which limits our ability to present our ideas to the full extent. Initially, we wanted to directly deliver the the soil analysis data from the laboratory through SoilMate.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We able to expand our knowledge on current issues through our research in various concerns regarding earth, water, air, and fire. We also feel grateful to be able to explore and experiment with many other tools such as Cohere, Autocode, and JavaScript before finalizing on our project. One of the members also feels accomplished to be a first time hacker.

What we learned

We learned that it is crucial to identify which specific issue to tackle in order to establish a clear direction in which the project will be built upon. We were also fascinated at how interdisciplinary and applicable the world of computer science can be, especially to environmental issues, as well as the importance of gaining technical skills and experience.

What's next for SoilMate

SoilMate’s functionality could be greatly improved by expanding the database to cover more data inputs, such as other soil compositions and mineral content results, to produce a more comprehensive output. From the user’s perspective, the app’s accessibility could also be increased by using image recognition to automatically generate results, instead of manual typing of values obtained from soil test reports. Our future goal is to further develop both front and backend aspects of the app; SoilMate ultimately aims to make soil analysis tools more accessible to individuals, which are usually only used by trained professionals and experienced farmers.

Built With

• python
• tkinker