Week 17, Applications and Implications

This week assignment tasks are

a) propose a final project that integrates the range of units covered and mastery of skills picked up in the fab journey

What will it be doing?

It is an automatic plant watering system. The plants will received water once a sensor detected dryness in the soil. This will reduced man power cost and minimize human intervention.

Was it done before?

This idea was already in the internet and I stumbled upon it in Instructables.com. I did a search on the internet and found there is another doing the same called Garduino .
I find the circuit a bit too complicated for me to handle and so I decided to simplified it to better suit my level of competency.

Materials and components needed

After designing the circuit on paper, these are the SMD components material needed.

The Cost

The total cost of the materials listed above is USD 39.48
The arcylic was taken from recycle bin and filament for the 3D printer was given on goodwill.
Lastly, EagleCAD software to design the circuit was free and PCB-GCode application to run the PCB milling machine was already installed.

Type of process employed to manufactured parts used in this project

1. What parts and systems will be made?
The PCB board and the acrylic box that housed the PCB board.

2. What processes will be used?
The PCB board will be designed in EagleCAD and milled out with LPKF103 PCB miller

3. What tasks need to be completed?
a. A flat tab will need to be 3D printed to increase surface area to allow easy removal/insertion of the soil sensor.
b. The attiny85 will need be programed using the method used in Week 8
c. Relay as the output device which will in turn control the submersible pump

4. What questions need to be answered?
a. Where to locate sensor within the vincity of the plant?
b. Where is the most convenient and best place to locate the micro-controller box?
c. How to tell if the soil sensor is faulty?
d. What type of water supply is more suitable; storage tank or directly connected to incoming supply?

5. What is the schedule?
a. 29 May - Circuit testing
b. 30 May - Design microcontroller PCB board
c. 1 June to 14 June - To milled PCB, laser cut the box and 3d print the semsor tab
d. 15 June to 21 June - Troubleshoot and testing, final documentation
e. 22 June - Presentation

How will it be evaluated?

If the soil is moist, the sensor will not activate and the submersible pump will not be trigger.
If the soil is dry, the sensor will activate and the submersible pump will be trigger. Once the soil is moist enough, then the soil sensor will deactivated and the submersible pump will stop pumping water.
If the above conditions are fulfilled, then the project is a success

My comments

I hope to develop it further into a network with a sensor and bluetooth device in every pot with its own individual water supply. The purpose of the bluetooth is to reduce messy wirings. A monitoring system will be implemented to collect data from every sensor and be analyzed. This will help indicated which plant required more watering than others as such so that appropriate action can be taken.