Build Awesome Technology for the Garden or Backyard by Going Green!

	Submit a Project Entry! Monthly Design Competitions, Earn Rewards, Decide Themes, Your Ideas, Your Projects, Turn Ideas into Projects. Back to The Project14 homepage	About Project14
		Project Theme
		Project Theme Poll

Discuss Your Project Ideas in the Comments Below!

Three First Place Winners Will Receive $100 worth of any BOM from any element14 transactional site!

The Going Green theme for this Electronics & Design Competition is to create awesome technology for the backyard or garden.  You are free to create any awsome tech for the garden or backyard. This could be anything that is specific to the garden, the BBQ, an outdoor pond, automate outdoor chores, or something using an LCD display so you can enjoy a movie or a sporting event outdoor.   Those are just some ideas to help get you thinking about a tech device you'd like to see outdoors. 

In the past people have come up with their own devices to help them grow fruits and vegetables, cook food the way the want to, create cooling devices to deal with the summer heat, and automate outdoor yard work.  Technology devices can be made to bring the things you enjoy doing inside such as playing video games, watching movies, listening to music, or sharing photos on a big screen.   Gatherings outdoors bring to mind food on the grill, a projector set up to enjoy movies, listening to tunes while you chat with friends, a cooling device for cold beverages or storing food to be put on the grill, and controlling the temperature so everyone is comfortable.  

is design a device for the Garden It's summer time and the community has spoken, Going Green, awesome technology for the garden or backyard is the monthly theme for the first project competition picked by the community members. Take a moment to step outside, take in some fresh air, fire up the grill, and do something involving gardening.  While you’re at it, why not make something useful that will allow you to do all those things, and create a cool video afterwards to show us your favorite way of going green.

Many people use the outdoors to get away from technology, this project competition challenges you to use awesome technology for the garden or backyard. What types of things do you like to do outdoors and how can tech be used to make your outdoor experiences more memorable?  How can you do the things you love to do in the summer while using technology to make your life easier? If you love gardening, there's a lot of documentation out their on garden automation projects using a microcontroller such as an Arduino.  It has several analog and digital inputs/outputs for you to hook up sensors, buttons, and switches.

Perhaps, you want to use something other than an Arduino.  That’s alright. Use whatever electronics components you want!  Or, if grilling is more your thing then perhaps an automated bbq that allows you to cook your food at exactly the right temperature, for the perfect level of doneness without losing any flavor!

You can do whatever project you want as long as you stick to the theme. 

Go green and show us what kind of awesome technology you would make for your backyard and garden!

Here are some examples of ideas to help get you started:

• Infra-red underwater motion-activated pond camera.
• Shed security.
• Automated BBQ
• A green friendly way to repel bugs
• A solar powered device
• Indoor Gardening
• Outdoor Gardening
• Any Project around Energy Efficiency

If you're in a place where you need to do your gardening indoors there are a lot ideas for that as well:

You don't have permission to edit metadata of this video. Edit media Dimensions x Small Medium Large Custom Subject (required) Brief Description Tags (separated by comma) Video visibility in search results Visible Hidden Parent content Ben Heck’s TI Launchpad Plant Booster Episode -- Episode 256 Build Awesome Technology for the Garden or Backyard by Going Green! Poster Upload Preview Ok Cancel

Ben builds a light compensator to supply indoor plants light when the sun isn’t able to provide enough light for them.  He uses a Texas Instrument MSP430 Launchpad Development Board, a TI BOOST-AD7042, a DS1307 real time clock, and a grow light.

Directions:

Step 1: Log in or register on element14, it's easy and free.

Step 2: Post in the comments section below to begin a discussion on your idea. Videos, pictures and text are all welcomed forms of submission.

Step 3: Submit a blog post of your progress on your project by the end of the month.  You are free to submit as many blog entries as you like until the beginning of the next theme. We'll accept blog posts until 12:00 am CDT August 14th, 2017.

Be sure to include video proof that your project is your own!

In the Comments below Submit Your Ideas for Awesome Technology for the Backyard!

Attachments:

Terms_and_Conditions_Going_Green.pdf