This is one of the last week of the fab academy. It has been an amazing journey, filled with fun, frustration and memories that will last with me forever. But enough with all the chit chat, Now lets get into this weeks assignment. This week it is Application and Implication. For this week we have to answer some question for our final project. Lets get right into it.
system integration. (go to my final project setup for more about the system integration)
What will it do? - My project, the soil health detector is going to be a device that would send data such as the soil moisture or temperature of the soil to its users through wifi! I want it to be a portable and easy to make project so that other people could simply replicate it and use it for themselves. I also want it to be able to last on the field fr extended periods of time, being able to withstand outside environment safely. This project would mainly be helpful for farmers who have massive fields. Such as farmers who grow paddy. Now lets also talk about the future plans for my project as well
My project was made with it being a node device. I wanted my project to be massly replicated. After that I will have a lot of devices that would be able to be able to relay information back to a Hub. (Which could be another device that could connect with you mobile or a hub website which will get all the data that the devices will fetch.) With this system farmer could use alot of these nodes to get information and relay information about a very big feild or farm land with great details.
Who has done it before -Ahmed Abobaker. He graduated from the university of UAE in 2015. He has done a similar project to mine. His project automatically waters the plant if it goes below a certain moisture level. It has a very compact design and is for potted plants. My project is a different as it only sends data, but my plus point could be that my project is ment to be used for the outdoors as well.
What are the material used:
Xiao ESP32 c3
Transparent Filament
Capacitive Soil Moisture sensor
DHT 11 sensor
3.7V Lithium Ion Battery
Solar Panel
Clear acrylic
Type C USB cable
This is just a rough sum of all the components I will be using for final project. I intent for the overall cost to be around 30$ - 40$ USD.
Where will I get my components from?!! - All my components are either form online sources or were either already here at my lab which were also bought from online sources.
What parts of my final project do I fabricate:
Enclosure - I will have to fabricate the enclosure of my final project. I need to note that my enclosure should have some key features. Firstly it should be compact and then portable(Preferable something I could hold in my hand). Also there should be a point in the enclosure that is exposed to sunlight so I can utilize the solar panel at its fullest potential. Next I have to leave some parts of the enclosure open to air(For the DHT sensor so that it gains accurate measuring). Lastly and I know that it conflicts with my previous point but I will have to make it waterproof so that it can be out side without any issues and send data back.
MCU - This should not even be a question! Fab Academy wont be right if we didn't have our own boards! For my main micro chip, I will be using the Xiao ESP 32 c3. It is a great micro controller! It has a 4MB flash with both wifi and then bluetooth capabilities. Perfect for my project which requires wireless data transmission.
Solar power - I would have to also find a way to use solar panels and let it feed electricity to my micro controller board. I might have to use a capacitor so that there is is a steady flow of electricity and it just suddenly spike or drop down if any issue occur. I might also have to cut an USB type C cable to and then also connect it to the solar panel and then connect the USB head to the USB connector on the Xiao ESP 32 C3.
Fabrication :
Enclosure - This is the component that will require heavy additive manufacturing so that my overall project can be waterproof. I will also have to create a sort of window on the top of the enclosure so that the solar panel can safely lie and there supply electricity to my project. For the body I will be using 3D printing and for the window I might have to use the laser printer using the clear acrylic to allow transparency. Therefore additive manufacturing for the main body and then
Micro controller - I will also have to print a micro controller board and then debug it to see if it is working or not. To fabricate the board I will be using the SRM 20 milling machine with a single sided copper plate.
Essentials for my project!!!
The soil moisture and DHT should give an output
The project should be able to send data witlessly to a web server.
Should be really resilient to environmental challenges such as rain.
Should be really portable and easy to use.
Should be solar powered and have a sort of backup battery(3.7V lithium ion battery)
BOM
I made it so that my design could be as small as possible on budget. I but I also had to ensure that the measuring that will be collected form my project should be as accurate as possible. Also should be reliable in terms of its durability. For that I carefully picked the items with the best quality to cost ratio.
What my project should be evaluated on
I want my project to evaluated on how portable and easy it is to use
I want my project to be able to be able to reliable and resistant to the outside enviroment.
I want my project to be as cheap to be as possible. With that everyone could replicate it with little effort.
I want my project to be able to send out its values over a distance through wireless information transportation (for me I used WIFI). The data should also be as accurate as possible!
I wanted to have my project to be as reliable as possible to others who will replicate it. Therefore the price of all the things I will be using has to be very cheap. Though with all of that I should not sacrifices the efficiency of my project and its reliability. I also want my project to be able to send its data wirelessly as when some one creates dozens of these node, they shouldn't have to go to every node to check if it giving good values or not. For that data needs to be transmitted wirelessly. The Node & Hub system is somthing I want to work on and create after I have finished the FAB Academy as I first want to make one of these node to work!.
