Introduction
Apologies, I'm late! As usual, in these busy days. But I finally got a chance to wipe some weekly time on the calendar to focus on the challenge: add sensing to an existing device. Wait and see what I called 'device' here...
As a newly become house owner, besides paying taxes, bills, furniture and so on, I took on my plate a new responsibility: minding the mini-garden. It looked pretty cool in my brain having roses, rosemary, cactus, tomatoes during the first years, but I soon realized you can't lose sight of them...
(I know, if you are a parent or pet owner, you may have thought already this is ridiculous, but please bare with me my level of life responsibilities)
While bringing up a couple of the easier plants, failing in others, I was immerse on watering an avocado seed, just for fun, to see what happens. Life happens indeed, without realizing it's about one meter tall now! Although I don´t pretend it to become a huge tree, specially because it is just on a pot on my terrace, the more it grows the less I want the plant to die. Too long minding it, I got attached. Plus my wife never thought I would make it...
Unfortunately, for different reasons, I have to stay away from home several weeks every now and then. So, I always wanted to attach a couple of sensors and pumps to my device (the avocado plant) and automate the watering system, but there is always other priority things on my to-do list. When I saw this challenge I was like: "yeah, this is the motivation I needed, deadlines force projects to get done"
Project Goals
As you may have guessed, the main goal is for the plant to survive, but I will add a constraints: low cost only use material off-the-shelf. That way we case, the project is:
- Low cost, we are investing the bare minimum amount of money
- Environmental friendly, not only because the benefits of plants on your terrace, but because we are recycling most of the material. I have a box with several components out of uncompleted DIY projects in the past
We want to get this done? let's put some deadlines so.
Project Schedule
| AvoBlog# | Deadline | Title | Details |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 25th September | Welcome |
|
| 2 | 2nd October | Sensor Research |
|
| 3 | 10th October | Evaluate Vishay products |
|
| 4 | 13th October | Protoype HW+SW |
|
| 5 | 20th October | Build HW prototype |
|
| 6 | 23rd October | Design your own PCB |
|
| 7 | 30th October | Design your own Algo |
|
| 8 | 3rd October | 3D enclosure |
|
| 9 | 10th October | Installation and Evaluation |
|
