Team Name
Hydroponix – PonX
Timeline
Fall 2021 – Spring 2022
Students
- Benjamin Lemke
- Michelle Nguyen
- Sammy Huynh
- Angel Cardenas Trujillo
- Jordan Guerrero
Abstract
The rise of home gardening due to physical health as well as mental health is one of the few things COVID-19 has brought to light for many people. Those who are fortunate enough to have an outside area to garden, may have the ability to take advantage of home gardening. PonX’s gives the ability to those who don’t have an outside area, don’t have the knowledge on how to garden, or live in an area where the climate is too harsh to harvest any produce year-round. Growing indoor is also cost effective because not buying much fresh produce makes gardening indoor well worth it.
Background
Hydroponics creates an easy-to-use hydroponics gardening system that is controlled by the home gardener via their phone application. Customers will be able to watering and light the system and maintenance duration all through our phone application.
Project Requirements
- The application is user friendly.
- A plastic reservoir will be used in place to water the system as needed.
- A lighting system will be implemented to provide artificial sun rays to help the plant grow year round while being indoors.
- The product will be pre-built to ensure that the product is in good condition.
- The PonX system should communicate to the application within a few seconds.
- Electronic components with locks and tags are used in accordance with OSHA standard LOTO procedures.
- All electrical wiring are in compliance with the National Electric Code.
- Application allows users to light and water the system through the phone application.
- Water reservoir is easily refillable.
- Hardware is easily accessible if parts (sensors) need to be replaced.
System Overview
The PonX hydroponics garden will be composed of 5 basic systems: the controller, the base, sensors, App/UI, and the tower. PonX has two primary functions: plant growing and plant monitoring. Plant growing will focus on tending to the basic needs of the plant such as light and water while plant monitoring will focus on monitoring the plant such as its soil, pH, nutrients levels, and moisture. Hydroponics plans for both functions be closely involved, at least post-prototype, so the device can tend to the plant depending on its current state. The device should allow users to easily control, automate, and monitor their plant while they are not in the immediate vicinity of the device. For more adapted gardeners, soil information will be available. We aim to minimize the total amount of work the user has to perform in order to tend to their plant.
Results
The main functions of the PonX system (lighting and watering) were able to be implemented along with the connectivity to our mobile application within the given time frame. Scheduling function is implemented but very rigid due to limited module space available on the Arduino board.
Video Demo (Link)
Future Work
For future enhancements in the completion of PonX, additional sensors to monitor water levels, nutrient levels, and incorrect fertilizer should be added. Also, the use of computer vision with machine learning to visually analyze data to perform tasks such as plant detection and recognition would complete the PonX system. In addition, portability of PonX’s source code to Apple users would also be considered for future enhancements. This would allow for customers using Apple products to manage the growth of their hydroponics system at the ease of their phones.
Project Files
Project Charter (Link)
System Requirements Specification (Link)
Architectural Design Specification (Link)
Detailed Design Specification (Link)
Poster (Link)
References
Any references go here, properly formatted
