This projects aims to enable people with busy life to take care of their plants by watering them while they are not home. Many people love to grow plants at their homes, but sometimes they are not committed to take care of them on a long term. Improper watering is the main reason for dying of plants, That doesn't only mean lack of water, but sometimes overwatering plants could harm them.
I used to have a small beautiful tree which was producing flowers, unfortunately it died because I had travelled and left it in a pot full of water, but it was much more than it needed.
The watering system has a control unit with a user interface where the user identifies a schedule for watering the plants and the amount of water each plant takes based on trials to determine the suitable amount for each.
Second part is the water tank or container. This container is a group of plastic bottles attached to pipes which carry water from bottles to plants. Water container is higher in elevation than the plants, to enable the water to flow with no need to any external power source, only gravity carries the water from the bottles to the plants through pipes.
An Arduino controls motors to open and close gates enabling the water to flow for specified plant.
Construction Parts
Laser cut wood sheets to construct the chasis
water pipes or fish tubes to deliver water
3D printed casing for the control unit
Input (Sensing and/or User)
watering schedule is pre determined by the user using a control unit (arduino + buttons + screen)
Sensors(PIR) determine the presence of birds
Action
Solenoid Valve (Water Inlet Flow Switch) is used to control the flow of water
Buzzer is used to keep birds away
Brain
Arduino
Power Management
DC adaptor
Minimum Features: are the least amount of features that would demonstrate the coverage of all the technical modules and their complete integration
Complete Features: are the set of features that will complete your original project objective and vision
Nice-to-have Features: are the extra set of features that will make the project cooler, yet they need extra time, effort, and/or resources to finish
Minimum User Features
Water flows in pipes at certain times
Action: Solenoid Valve
Sensing: None
User Input: user determines the time to water each plant
Complete User Features
Buzzer produces sound to keep birds away
Action: buzzer sound
Sensing: PIR sensor
User Input: None
Nice-to-have User Features
Plants are watered when soil moistures reaches a specific value
Action: Solenoid Valve
Sensing: Soil Moisture Sensor
User Input: None
Task
Sub-Tasks
From:
To:
Create Bill of materials
Research and list all components
Look up power requirements for all components
Calculate power source requirements
Septemper, 7
Septemper, 8
Electronics & Programming on a breadboard (Minimum & Complete Features)
Feature 1: Water flows in pipes at certain times
Feature 2: Buzzer produces sound to keep birds away
Feature 3: Bluetooth connection between Arduino & smartphone.
Septemper, 13
Septemper, 17
Design Enclosure
Create CAD on Fusion 360
Create Mounting for components
Septemper, 18
Septemper, 19
Fabrication & Integration
Fabricate and assemble the enclosure
Mount all components
Test minimum features
Test complete features
Septemper, 20
Septemper, 26
Component/Material
Amount
Link
Arduino Uno
1
Solenoid Valve
1
https://ram-e-shop.com/product/solenoid-12vdc-i/
LED screen
1
Keypad
1
Buzzer
1
PIR sensor
1
12V DC adaptor
1
Bluetooth module
1
Relay
1
Fish tube
1
Ply wood
1