Home Gardening Companion Journal

Project Ideation

1- Tell us about the idea of your project. Why do you care about this? What were you inspired by? Include images and videos of similar projects

The Idea simply is a trial to solve the problem of climate change through small actions and Initiatives. Which are home gardening and green roofing.

It is a portable device to be connected to any type of pot to protect against excess sun exposure and to sense the dryness or wetness of the soil for proper planting. The sun exposure protection is done through a movable shading tent. when the plant takes its enough light that is defined to the device, the shading element opens to protect the plant. Water sensing through a soil moisture sensor of the soil and then the device sends an alarm for watering the plant.

Project Construction

2- Explain the CAD process of your project. How did you use the software to design your project? (List the softwares/tools/materials...etc that you used)

After the ideation process and prototyping, it is time to really do the project.

1- It began with drawing the enclosure and mechanism using Fusion360.

It all began with sketching and simulating the joints of the rolling mechanism as follows:

The rolling mechanism needed a box for the motors housing and its sketches are as follows

Fusion File

A video for the rolling mechanism.

A descriptive Shots

Then the stem and base parts to be the amount of the Arduino, motor driver and breadboard:

The box and stem sketches are as follows:

A video for the Base part holding the Arduino, motor driver and breadboard.

A descriptive Shots

A full simulation video

3- Explain the fabrication process of your project. How did you use the machine to fabricate your project? (List the softwares/tools/materials...etc that you used)

After the CAD drawings :

2- I used Cura to prepare the 3D printing files and LaserWorks for Laser cutting.

3- The fabrication of the parts using PRUSA i3 MK2 3D printer and Laser cutter is done.

4- MDF was used for laser cutting, black and grey PLA filament was used for the 3D printing and screws and nuts was used for the assembly.

Laser Cut

Laser Cut Files Preparation

Laser Cut Outputs

The laser-cut files were at speed of 10 m/s, and a power of 75 in order to cut the MDF. In some cases, due to the frequent cutting, the settings went to a speed of 8m/s.

3D Printing

Laser Cut Files Preparation

Laser Cut Outputs

I used PLA grey for the rolling shaft and the shading rail while PLA black for the brackets. The infill was 20%. The layer height in the brackets was 0.2 mm while on the other parts was 0.3mm.

Project Electronics & Power Management

4- Describe your electronic circuit. What are the input and action components? What is the function of each? How do the components integrate together to form your smart system? (List the softwares/tools/components...etc that you used)

The component to form the shading element is the DC motors. In order to control the dc motor, Arduino and motor driver module are used. They are accompanied by LEDs and LCD screen to give alarms and indicate the lighting exposure condition ( is the plant took its required light or not). A soil moisture sensor is used as a complementary feature to the home gardening companion.

The device has an on/off switch which leads to two modes: the manual mode and automatic mode. The automatic mode works by the IR sensor which senses the availability of light. When the plant takes its sufficient hours of light exposure ( 7 hours for example), the shading element goes down and the green led lights up printing on screen enough light. And when the light sensor senses no light, the shading element goes up. The manual mode works with a switch that lets the shading goes up or down manually.

Electronics Components

The Wiring Diagram

5- What is your power source? How did you select the suitable power source for your project? (List the softwares/tools/components...etc that you used)

The power source of this circuit id 9V to power the Arduino and the DC motors to work efficiently and holds the loads of the shading element.

Project Programming

6- Describe the code of your project. How did you program each function of the project?

Let's start our coding Journey.

Firstly, The LCD i2c was defined.
Then all the variables are defined.

The pins control the dc motor through the motor driver.
the LDR pin.
The LEDs pins.
Switches pins.
soil moisture sensor pin.
Counters for motors movement.
Booleans for motor stops.

3- Then, the void setup. Where each pin was defined either as inputs or outputs.

4- Then the void loop where the code begins.

firstly, the if condition of the power switch. when the device is on, it begins to sense the moisture of the soil through the soil moisture sensor automatically.
then it goes inside the automatic or manual mode switch of the shading element.

Inside the automatic mode, it takes the readings from the sensor. If there is light, the shading goes down and the green led lights up indicating that the shading is on. And when the sensor doesn't sense light, the shading goes up.

During the manual mode, if the switch is high, the shading elements go down and the green led lights up. and when the switch is low, the shading goes up.

Finally, When the device is off, all the components shut down. and the counters are reset.

Arduino Code

Project Integration & Testing

7- Demonstrate with text and visuals how did you integrate the project’s modules together? What are the testing results? (Include a Demo video separately, showing a proof of functionality)

Assembled Wooden parts

Assembled Wooden parts with the wiring and mountings.

20220925_225657.mp4

Mechanism trial

3D shots

A Demo for the Home Planting Companion

Sharing & Collaboration

8- Did you ask for feedback? What are the ideas that others have contributed or suggested? What was someone else’s idea that you built upon? How did you help your peers? How did your peers help you?

For the exposed shading, it was supposed to be printed on the 3D printer, but it took over 12 hours and an error happened in printing it. Therefore, my colleague Osama and instructor Amany suggested doing it with wooden strips connected by only one rail 3D printed which succeeded.

Overcoming Challenges

9- When you got stuck, what/who did you turn to? At what point did you have to pause to research or learn more before moving on? What are some mistakes, pitfalls, or challenges that others can avoid if they were doing this project?

Integration challenges:

DC motor mounting shaft. The opening was very tight on the shaft. Therefore, Amany suggested using the driller to make the opening bigger.
The mounting of the Switches. The solution was to exclude part from the switch hangings as shown in the photos.
The mounting of the LED lights. The openings were bigger than the led itself. Therefore, we cut small parts similar to the nuts and attached the LEDs to them.

Third challenge

First challenge

Second challenge

Coding challenges:

How to let the DC motor stop after moving the shading. This challenge was solved using counter and boolean variables and a stopping function.

Future Work

10- If you had more time, what is one thing you would change/ Do next in your project?

I would like to program the Arduino to store the different light exposure limits for more plants that could facilitate the planting process for the home resident.
I also would like to design an external container that could be mounted on the device to water the plants.
It would be super (rewesh) if the device sends a notification to your device when the soil is dry or when the temperature outside is above what the plant could stand.

Final Project Design Files

Design Files