A Very MAD Blog
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Our project can be summarised as a garden or houseplant automation system. It will calculate temperature, sunlight, and soil moisture to tell you what the plant(s) need. We are going to have a relatively cheap and small sensor board that will get data from the plant and send it wirelessly to the base unit that will monitor all the plants and give the user notifications on required actions.
We plan to finish the main components of this by June 8th and release a promotional video a week later.
After speaking to multiple people in the farming industry it became clear that in the future we should create a more comprehensive device that also measures soil ph and nitrates in the soil. This could lead to a range of products for different user needs.
According to Dictionary.com (2018) ‘Automation’ is “the technique, method, or system of operating or controlling a process by highly automatic means, as by electronic devices, reducing human intervention to a minimum.” This means any machine that does a task mostly without a human or another animal for that matter.
Automation is becoming a popular topic recently with the rapid development of Home Automation and a huge amount of wireless home devices coming into the global market. (Gill, Yang, Yao, & Lu, 2009). In my opinion from what I see on web forums and people I know, there are a few types of people that are attracted to Home Automation: People that like DIY and Electronics, People that buy prebuilt systems for productivity and simplicity, and people that just think it is interesting.
Automation can save time and be convenient in a modern home. It is highly adaptable with some technical skill. Furthermore, automation can give peace of mind as it is possible to check locks are on, doors/windows are closed, and lights are off without leaving your seat. However, Cost of some of these systems can be an issue if you are using commercial products (money could be saved by making systems or part of the system from scratch). (Brush, et al., 2011). The cost could be a factor stopping less tech-savvy people from automating their houses.
I believe automation can save a lot of time and be used for a lot of good. We are only just starting to explore all the possibilities. I see a lot of potential in the medical divisions in monitoring and with the use of AI even predicting disease and of course in assistive devices such as the plant growing assistive system, we are working on.