Table of contents

Abstract
Zen Garden provides a sense of peace and reduces stress by looking at it. Jan 14 happens to be the Buddhists new year. To commemorate the holiday and as an entry for holiday contest, I have decided to create a voice controllable Zen Garden with a fountain.
Project
Introduction
In India, holiday season is usually the end of October where we celebrate the 10 days festival Dussehra and the 3 days harvest festival in the southern part of India Pongal that begins from Jan 14. January 14 holds a special place among most of the Asian countries, as it is also the new year day for Buddhists. In the spirit of the festival seasons, I have decided to create a tabletop sized Zen Garden that can be controlled through voice using voice assistants.
Why a Zen Garden?
As most of you already know, Zen gardens are intended for relaxation, meditation and contemplation. A special place is given to every plant, rock and the sand in an effort to create harmony, tranquility and balance. Nature is represented from a minimalistic point of view. Some people find the calm face of Buddha to be relaxing while others find the trickling sound from the fountain useful in fixating their mind during meditation
Let's design a Zen Garden
Highlight of the garden should be the minimal design and a peaceful outlook, not the wiring and unnecessary distraction. While there are no official rules in how Zen Garden should be designed, there are some couple of guidelines laid out for people to follow, in whatever capacity they could.
- Rocks and Stones
- Plants
- Fountains or Water Basins
- Bridges and Paths
- Lanterns and Ornaments
- Sand Patterns and Zen Garden Layout
Well, I certainly can't build a small bridge, so I decided to include a minimum 3 among the listed elements. I decided to create a simple project where I can control a fountain, light intensity and color of the LED strip. The fountain will be surrounded by plants that are placed on a sand bed.
Quick technical setup
I won't focus too much on the technical aspect here, the connection between garden and the voice assistants will be done by using Sinric Pro platform which provides an easier way of integrating smart devices with home assistants such as Alexa and Nest through their respective apps. I initially spend some time setting up Matter communication-based setup, it was a no go. So, I opted to use the trustworthy ESP32S3 Dev kit to complete this setup. Code is included in this blog as an hyperlink in the review section.
We will use two different LED setup to provide light,
- One LED manually controlled through IR remote
- WS2812B RGB LED strip controlled through ESP32.
We will use a submersible pump to push water to fountainhead and back into the fountain basin.
{gallery}Crafting the Pavilion from scratch |
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A medium sized cardboard to serve as base for pavilion |
Bottom of an old beverage bottle has been carved to serve as fountain head and will be attached to a pump |
ESP32S3 serves as the main controller to controll the LED strip, with a simple BJT circuit acting as switch for the pump |
Testing the circuit and measuring the space for LED strip placement. |
LED strip was previously used in another project, so the glue is not an option. So, taped the LED strip to the box. |
Thin plastic sheets to act as cover for the base |
Patched up base with decor sheet |
Roof for the pavilion with an IR controllable LED head placed on top to shed light upon the statue. |
LED light is manually controlled through remote. Small patch of grass to act as bed for the statue. |
Bottom of an old plastic box acting as fountain base while the submersible pump is placed inside it. the wires are taken out. |
Setting up the Statue
{gallery}setting up the Stage |
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Taken out once glue is dried out. |
covering the sand with smaller grass type plants. |
placed the statue on the dais. |
I did make one mistake though, the roof should have been above the statue. |
Finally, all our pieces are set |
Final presentation
Thats it! Our garden is ready for a quick demo of all the functions it can do. I hope you guys can forgive the shaky hands and low light settings of the video.
Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed creating this garden!
https://github.com/cookieDroid/zen_garden/blob/main/zen_garden.ino
References
The Zen Garden | Chicago Botanic Garden
6 elements for a perfect zen garden | Homeonline