This week, our biggest effort went towards sufficiently preparing for the interim demos on Monday and Wednesday. We aimed to have 2-3 working sensors, at least one working actuator, a working camera stream, and plant identification, all communicating with the webapp somewhat. We came across many risks during the process, firstly for the amount of plant data we send there may not be enough space on the database to hold it, so we decided to reduce the frequency of data sent. Additionally, when trying to set up the heater, we found that when running the code, it tends to overheat and occasionally smoke, proving to be a fire hazard, so we aim in the future to try thicker wires better for this. Additionally, we aimed to have the soil moisture, pH, and nutrients sensor ready for the interim demo and ML data collection, however, due to lack of documentation, it has been difficult to set in time, so an easier sensor (HW080) is being used instead initially to just collect soil moisture data for now whilst the other one is being setup.
For the overall design, we have run into overheating issues in the Raspberry Pi, so we have decided to move the light sensor as well as the soil moisture sensor (HW080) to an Arduino to collect data and send that to the Raspberry Pi. As the LEDs we initially bought may not have been appropriate for rewiring through a relay, we have also decided to purchase a new one to prepare for it.
Progress:
- Working soil moisture, temperature, and humidity sensor data sent to webapp
- Working water pump control through webapp
- Working camera stream to the webapp
- Mostly working plant identification
- Working plant health identification through webapp
- Display temperature and humidity sensor data on webapp with charts
- Some working code for mister actuator
Next Steps:
- Get the heater actuator working
- Get plant identification more accurate
- Start training on collected sensor data
- Get soil moisture, pH, and nutrient sensors working
- Get mister working through actuator
- Get LED strips working through actuator
