This week I started looking at different requirements for my project by answering the following questions:
what will it do? who's done what beforehand?what materials and components will be required? where will they come from? how much will it cost? what parts and systems will be made? what processes will be used? what tasks need to be completed? what questions need to be answered?
It is a healthy plant indicator with a purpose to keep the plant Hydrated, Happy and Healthy. It has an embedded system that will send a signal to light an LED(the indicator), whenever the plant is thirsty and needs to be Hydrated. This is meant to be mainly used at home, in the plant vase.
There are many products on the market meant to perform the same tasks, below are some examples: The first is from Tech will save us, the second is from Plant Hydrator , the third and fourth are from Plant care
1) Attiny 44 (1)
2) 5v regulator (1)
3) Capacitors
4) Slide switches (3)
5) 9v battery (1)
6) LEDs
7) Moisture / humidity sensor (1)
9) Resonator (1)
10) Resistors
I will get all the components from the lab. The total cost is around $10.
I will make a system that will communicate with the plant to identify if the plant needs water. The moisture sensor, will sense the humidity in the soil, send a signal to the microcontroller which will then send a signal to the LED in order to communicate to the user that the plant needs water. I will build a circuit board to perform the above tasks and a casing to protect the circuit board.
I will use three processes:
1. 3D printing: I will design and 3D print the casing that will cover my circuit board.
2. Laser cutting: To cut another part of the casing cover
3. Milling: I will mill my PCB with the monoFab Roland milling machine
The main questions should be answered are :
1. How can I use the remaing time effectively? I remain with a short period of time until the deadline. I need to divide all tasks within the remaining days(3).
2. Do I have all materials needed apart from the electronics components: is the solder gun available and working well, does the lab have enough PLA to print my casing, do I have the top arcylic material for my casing?
3. Do I have all the requirements to prepare the visual presentation and video (the video editing software)?
4. How long will the battery last? and Where the sensor will be located?
5.What the program will do?
How will it be evaluated?
Verifying if:
1. the program, inputs and outputs work together
2. the battery last
3. the PCB is well protected