Project

# Title Team Members TA Documents Sponsor
55 HydroFlora ( A Context-Aware Watering Can )
 Charis Wang
Delilah Dzulkafli
Idris Ispandi
 Mingrui Liu design_document1.pdf
photo1.png
proposal1.pdf
# Team Members:

Idris Ispandi (mm120) Delilah Dzulkafli (delilah5)

# Problem:

Many people care for multiple houseplants with different watering needs, but watering is typically done by intuition and inconsistent habits. Because plant type, pot size, soil type, and moisture all affect how much water a plant actually needs, manual watering often results in overwatering or underwatering. Overwatering can lead to root rot, fungus gnats, and wasted water, while underwatering causes plant stress, slowed growth, and wilting. Existing reminders or generic schedules don’t adapt to real-time soil conditions, and fully automated irrigation systems can be too expensive, complex, or impractical for small indoor plant collections. There is a need for a simple, low-effort tool that helps users deliver the correct amount of water per plant based on measured soil dryness and plant/pot-specific requirements, without requiring a permanent installed system.

# Solution:

In order to maintain optimal conditions for plants, we propose a smart watering can. The watering can will have two working parts: the MCU connected to a water pump (on the watering can), and the modular sensing unit (on the plants pot). The idea is that when you get a new plant, you input to the MCU the type of the plant, and the recommended amount of water the plant will be stored. The sensor unit will constantly broadcast the readings so when you pick up the watering can it will tell you which plant is in need of water based on the previous watering logs. You select the plant and go to the respective pot and press dispense and the MCU will tell the pump to dispense the needed amount of water = Recommended moisture level - current moisture level. This way, we can ensure that each plant has the most optimal amount of water needed to grow.

# Solution Components:

- ## Subsystem 1 (Water Dispensing Unit):
Components: Peristaltic Liquid Pump with Silicone Tubing

Driven by the MCU, this unit is responsible for dispensing the required amount of water. This will be placed in the watering can.
[https://www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/adafruit-industries-llc/1150/5638299](url)


- ## Subsystem 2 (Sensor Node):
Components: Capacitive Soil Moisture Sensor SKU:SEN0193, ESP32-C3-WROOM-02, battery and regulator

This unit will have a sensor that will be attached to the plant to measure the soil moisture, and the readings will be transmitted to the main control unit periodically via WiFi/Bluetooth (tradeoffs are still being weighed).
[https://www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/dfrobot/SEN0193/6588605](url)


- ## Subsystem 3 (Main Control Unit):
Components: ESP32-C3-WROOM-02, LCD display, buttons

This acts as the device's main control unit. When the user chooses a plant by clicking the buttons (pre-defined for prototype), the LCD will display what plant the user has selected. It is then responsible for determining the amount of water to be pumped out based on the readings received from the plant’s moisture sensor.

- ## Subsystem 4 (Physical Build):

Components: A watering can

The MCU will be attached at the top of the watering can with a waterproof enclosure. This will be discussed with the machine shop for further opinions.

- ## Subsystem 5 (Power Management):
Components: Rechargeable Battery for MCU and LiPo battery for sensor unit

This subsystem provides rechargeable power and stable 3.3 V for our electronics. The pump, sensor node, and the control unit will have separate power systems.


# Criterion For Success:
This project will be considered successful if the system can reliably receive soil moisture data from multiple sensor nodes (sensor readings are stable under fixed conditions), accurately determine which plant needs watering, and dispense water within 10% of the target volume while maintaining a stable operation:


- Sensor nodes have a stable, repeatable moisture value where moisture reading increases after watering and decreases over time

- Sensor nodes can successfully broadcast soil moisture readings to the main control unit.

- Accurately determine which plant needs watering based on moisture level

- Pump dispenses water within 10% of target volume

- Different plants result in different dispense volume

- Sensor node operates continuously for >24 hours on battery without recharge

- Electronics remain functional after watering

VoxBox Robo-Drummer

Craig Bost, Nicholas Dulin, Drake Proffitt

VoxBox Robo-Drummer

Featured Project

Our group proposes to create robot drummer which would respond to human voice "beatboxing" input, via conventional dynamic microphone, and translate the input into the corresponding drum hit performance. For example, if the human user issues a bass-kick voice sound, the robot will recognize it and strike the bass drum; and likewise for the hi-hat/snare and clap. Our design will minimally cover 3 different drum hit types (bass hit, snare hit, clap hit), and respond with minimal latency.

This would involve amplifying the analog signal (as dynamic mics drive fairly low gain signals), which would be sampled by a dsPIC33F DSP/MCU (or comparable chipset), and processed for trigger event recognition. This entails applying Short-Time Fourier Transform analysis to provide spectral content data to our event detection algorithm (i.e. recognizing the "control" signal from the human user). The MCU functionality of the dsPIC33F would be used for relaying the trigger commands to the actuator circuits controlling the robot.

The robot in question would be small; about the size of ventriloquist dummy. The "drum set" would be scaled accordingly (think pots and pans, like a child would play with). Actuators would likely be based on solenoids, as opposed to motors.

Beyond these minimal capabilities, we would add analog prefiltering of the input audio signal, and amplification of the drum hits, as bonus features if the development and implementation process goes better than expected.

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