Weekly Progress

Week one: Introduction and Brainstorming Project Ideas

        In this week, we were introduced to some ideas about a project. We went over a few ideas and threw some ideas in a pile. We finally decided on one. As the page's title might have given it away, it is moisture sensing hydro dispenser. It is a device that senses the moisture content of the soil before turning on the sprinklers or any other water supply. For our project we have decided to dispense the water using a motor or a valve. Adam, Zachary and myself have also split up the work for the coming term. Adam is in charge of the notebook. Zachary has chosen to do the three project reports that are due through out the term. I have chosen to do the blog. We have yet to decide on the materials and hence the budget. However, we will be using an Arduino microprocessor, a servo motor (possibly) and a moisture sensor for the most important tasks in our projects.

Week Two: Initial Design Ideas

       During the start of week two, we had a pretty good Idea of what we were going to be doing. We also added one more member to our group. We soon started looking up the parts we needed for the project. We started with an arduino.

Zach and Atiq looking up parts

 We basically compared prices from different vendors since the Arduino is an open source product. We decided to have one shipped from Greece. We also decided to use a borrowed arduino from the ECE department until then.








The parts we decide on so far are as follows.
1 Arduino Uno
1 Mini-Breadboard
1 Soil Moisture sensor

       These parts should prove to be sufficient for the testing phase we are going to be in  for the coming weeks. We also rented a few items from the ECE department as in the pictures below.

Atiq and the Arduino

Breadboard and a few wires

       Zach also did a quick sketch of the final design to keep everyone on track. This is our initial design sketch and it could possibly change in the coming weeks.

Initial Design

Week Three:Research and Arduino Testing

     This week we did some research on the arduino and what sensor we should use for the soil testing. Adam and I took charge of the arduino testing and research. He looked up the ways the arduino and the sensor should interact in our project.

Adam looking up code tutorials

            Atiq was in charge of the plant life research and Zach was filling out the details of the container and the whole water delivery mechanism.

Testing the Arduino with simple light code

We decided to use a Soil Hygrometer sensor. It should provide sufficient feedback as to the moisture content of the soil.  We should start prototyping soon and will have a first prototype by next week.

                         Week Four:Finalizing Design and Sensor Testing
   
      This week we decide on the plant and soil we will be using for the project. We will be using a Sunflower( Helianthus) in a normal house pot. We decided on using  this plant because of its consistent hydration needs. It needs to be watered on average once every day which makes it better than most for this project. We have also conducted a few tests on the sensor to find the range of values for our plant. The Arduino Website defines the values as, " This is what we call an analog signal. It differs from a digital one in being able of taking many more than just two values. The amount of possibilities depends on the capabilities of the processor/micro-controller you are working with in each case. Arduino can only distinguish 1024 different levels between 0 to 5 V."

                So we will have a value of 0 when 5 V of voltage goes through to the other prong and 1024 when we have 0 V reaching the other side. It will usually output a value of 200-250 bit of resolution when it needs to be watered and will slowly drop down to 150-190 when it has been full watered. Given these values may be altered by the temperature and the stage of the life cycle the plant is in. In addition to this, we have also finalized a Sketch up diagram of our project.

Arduino and Sensor Setup

Potted Plant

Sensor Readings from Arduino setup on 20 sec intervals after water was added

                  Week Five: Planning and Hygrometer Testing

       So, this week we decided on the location of the sensor. We decided to place the sensor about 4/5th of the total length of the prong. This length gave us the most accurate feedback and values we can work with. The following graphs are of readings from the different lengths inserted in the soil.

Partially immersed Sensor

Sensor readings when the sensor is barely in the soil

Fully Immersed Sensor

Fully Immersed readings

Ideally Immersed Sensor

Ideal Sensor readings

   
      We also got the valve we will be working with to ensure water reaches the plant. The only issue we have with the valve is the arduino's 5 V is not sufficient to power it. It needs 12 V to let the power through. To solve this issue, we have decide to use an external power source (2 x 9 V batteries). We are going to model our valve on this solenoid setup. Moreover, since the valve is also a solenoid, it should have the same effect.
            

Solenoid Valve

Circuit Design for Valve

         
                     Week Six: Valve Setup and Programming

This week, we hooked up the valve based on the circuity diagram above. We also programmed the valve to open and close based on the condition we set forth to it. we also bought the batteries and the pipes for the water to go through. We somewhat assembled the whole project to give us a basic idea of where everything is going to be.

Valve and circuitry

    We also needed the external batteries because the voltage supply from the arduino is not powerful enough to open the valve. After programming the valve we tested it out with our the batteries.

                         Week Seven: Initial prototyping

This week we assembled all the parts including the pipes to give us a general idea of what the prototype was to look like. We ran into some circuitry problems, misplaced diode, while setting up but this has been prevented from happening again.

Assembled dispenser with pipes 

     

Close-up of the assembly

           We also ran into some obstacles this week. The piping we got for the project does not seem to fit with the Britta container we have. It leaks water despite our best efforts to prevent that. We tried using hot glue and leak sealant. We had to wait for the seal to dry out but it should not be too much of an issue.  We are also having issues with the sensor as the values we are getting are proving hard to work with. These values are somewhat different from the values we expected to read from an under-watered plant. We have decided to do more testing on the sensor before writing our final code for the prototype.




    Week Eight: Calculations, Programming, and Soil Testing

      In the final stages of designing and prototyping this project, we needed to complete a few things that required our attention. So this week we planned on testing the sensor for the values and fixing the leak that the pipe forms when connected to the container.

     The readings the arduino received from the sensor seemed to be random some times, so the group decided to conduct a thorough testing to see what readings correspond to what moisture level in the soil. The moisture level we are intending on measuring is the water to soil ratio of the solution. We will start out with 100% soil, which should give back a high reading then we will proceed to add water with 5% intervals until the water comprises 50% of the soil which means there is a 1:1 ratio( Saturated) of water to soil which should give us our max value. More information on this can be found in the Background and Research section above. The values collected from this procedure will help to identify the ideal moisture content of the soil. The ideal value will then be altered depending on the kind of plant life used which will most likely be an Aloe Vera plant.

Cups and Dried soil for Testing

Point of leakage in project

Despite group six's efforts the leak still has persisted on being a problem. Silicon, hot glue and elbow grease have all been tried but the hole is too small and too deep inside to be affected by any normal adhesive. Caulk is the next adhesive and possibly the last before making drastic changes like switching pipes or the container to the project.



















We also wrote a template for the final code we are intending on using for the final project. We basically had two options when it came to watering the plant. We could maintain a certain water level by adding water when it reads below that value or wait for the water to drain and then add a large amount of water. We still have not decided which way to go since it will depend on the kind of plant and the reading we get from the test above.


         Week Nine: Final coding and Sensor Re-calibration

         This week the group put all the parts of the project together and retested the sensor to find a best fit line that corresponds the moisture level in the soil to the reading of the sensor. This gave us the formula that we can easily use to relate these two. This means depending on the ideal soil-water ratio of the plant, one can add the precise amount of water until the reading is at the desired level.
We measured the values in three cups of varying moisture as seen in the table below.

Table that shows reading corresponding to moisture level

 We graphed this table to give us the best fit line equation we will use in our code later on.

Graph of table with best fit line and equation

For the program , we put together a code that looks something like this. It is done in Arduino and pretty straight forward in the comments.

                     Week Ten: Redesign and Prototyping

This week, We had to replace the piping we had due to other leak issue and we replaced this with other plastic tubing.

Tubing used in project

We also put all the parts together and made a little video for all you fans out there. We also could not fix the leak that persisted on being an issue so we decided to put a tray in that region in an effort to better help with the project.

 Final Prototype video