Featured Project
# Mushroom Growing Tent Project
Team Members:
- Elizabeth Boyer (eboyer2)
- Cameron Fuller (chf5)
- Dylan Greenhagen (dylancg2)
# Problem
Many people want to grow mushrooms in their own homes to experiment with safe cooking recipes, rather than relying on risky seasonal foraging, expensive trips to the store, or time and labor-intensive DIY growing methods. However, living in remote areas, specific environments, or not having the experience makes growing your own mushrooms difficult, as well as dangerous. Without proper conditions and set-up, there are fire, electrical, and health risks.
# Solution
We would like to build a mushroom tent with humidity and temperature sensors that could monitor the internal temperature and humidity, and heating, and humidity systems to match user settings continuously. There would be a visual interface to display the current temperature and humidity within the environment. It would be medium-sized (around 6 sq ft) and able to grow several batches at a time, with more success and less risk than relying on a DIY mushroom tent.
Some solutions to home-grown mushroom automation already exist. However, there is not yet a solution that encompasses all problems we have outlined. Some solutions are too small of a scale, so they don’t have the heating/cooling power for a larger scale solution. Therefore, it’s not enough to yield consistent batches. Additionally, there are solutions that give you a heater, a light set, and a humidifier, but it’s up to the user to juggle all of these modules. These can be difficult to balance and keep an eye on, but also dangerous if the user does not have experience. Spores can get released, heaters can overheat, and bacteria and mold can grow. Our solution offers an all-in-one, simple, user-friendly environment to bulk growing.
# Solution Components
## Control Unit and User Interface
The control unit and user interface are grouped together because the microcontroller is central to the design of both, and they are closely linked in function.
The user interface will involve a display that shows measured or set values for different conditions (temperature, humidity, etc) on a display, such as an LCD display, and the user will have buttons and/or knobs that allow the user to change values.
The control unit will be centered around a microcontroller on our PCB with circuitry to connect to the other subsystems.
Parts List:
1x Microcontroller
1x PCB, including small buttons and/or knobs, power circuitry
1x Display module
1x Power supply
## Temperature Sensing and Control
The temperature sensing and control components will ensure that the grow box stays at the desired temperature that promotes optimal growth. The system will include one temperature sensor that will record the current temperature of the box and feed a data output back into our PCB. From here, the microcontroller in our control unit will read the data received and send the necessary adjustments to a Peltier module. The Peltier module will be able to increase the temperature of the box according to the current temperature of the box and set temperature. Cooling will not be required, as maintaining a minimum temperature is more important than a maximum temperature for growth.
Parts List:
1x Temperature Sensor
1x Peltier module
## Humidity Sensing and Control
The humidity sensing and control system will work in a similar way to the temperature system, only with different ways to adjust the value. We will have one humidity sensor that will be continually sending data to our PCB. From here, the PCB will determine whether the current value is where it should be, or whether adjustments need to be made. If an increase in humidity is needed, the PCB will send a signal to our misting system which will activate. If a decrease is needed, a signal will be sent to our air cycling system to increase the rate of cycling, thereby decreasing the humidity within the box.
Parts List:
1x Humidity Sensor
4x Misting heads
Water tubing as needed
## Air Quality Control
The air filtration system is run constantly, as healthy mushroom growth (free of bacteria) needs clean, fresh air, and mycelium requires and uses up oxygen as it grows. Additionally, this unit is connected to the hydration sensing unit- external humidity is in most cases going to be lower than internal humidity, and cycling in new air can be used to decrease humidity. When high humidity is detected, the air filtration system will decrease the internal humidity by cycling in less humid air.
Parts List:
Flexible Air duct length as needed
1x Fan for promoting air cycling
# Criteria For Success
Our demo will show that each of our subsystems functions as expected and described below:
For the control unit and user interface, we will demonstrate that the user can change the set temperature and humidity values through buttons or knobs.
The humidity sensing and control system’s functionality will demonstrate that introducing dry air into the device activates the misting system, which requires functional sensors and a water pump.
The temperature sensing and control system demo will involve showing that the heater turns on when the measured temperature is below the set temperature.
The air quality control system’s success will be demonstrated as air movement coming from the fan enters the tent.
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