What did we want?
Our target goal was to create an aeroponic Garden that was functional (mists plants regularly), aesthetically pleasing, autonomous (multiple sensors controlling the system), and can be controlled from a webpage. Our minimum viable product was to have a functional system that is not necessarily good-looking, and has some sensor control.
Where did we end up?
Our System
Aeroponics is a complex system which we will attempt to explain on this page. You can check out our subsystems on the electrical, mechanical, and software pages.
Our entire physical system is housed inside of two five-gallon buckets. Inside of the top bucket, there is water on the bottom that is pumped to the top through a mister to reach the roots of the plants, which drains back to conserve water. The plants are given nutrients through an interior pump. All of the functions described above are monitered, controlled, and corrected with multiple sensors that communicate to Arduino, then NearBus which then sends them to Google Sheets to create a user interdace (shown below). From this user interface, people can check on sensor values and make changes which are sent back through NearBus and to Arduino to make more changes.
Our Results
Our User Interface
note: data currently displayed is dummy data and was not collected while the system was active.
The graph above displays the recent activity of the system. Periodic communications from the Arduino microcontroller keep the data displayed here up to date so that the system can be monitored remotely. Control of a handful of parameters is possible by using the forms below.
To edit control parameters, login with a valid NearBus account below:
