SmartSprout
Combatting Food Deserts and Water Scarcity
Current gardening and farming efforts rely on resource-intensive irrigation techniques that use water inefficiently. With technology and artificial intelligence, a smart irrigation system can be implemented to conserve water, assist farmers, and help attack the bigger problem of food deserts.
In response to water scarcity and food insecurity, SmartSprout implements an innovative smart irrigation system on local community food farms, optimizing water usage and enhancing crop yields to promote environmental sustainability and secure a thriving food supply, especially for underserved communities.
SmartSprout's Journey
Step 5: Monitoring and Data Collection
Summer 2023
We are monitoring readings daily to check on sensor consistency. We are also continuously feeding the data into our analysis pipeline and hope to have some interesting results soon!
Step 4: Implementation!
May 2023
With a couple of visits to the garden, we were able to successfully integrate our prototype's electronics with the bed circuitry, as well as plant the sensors in the soil in a way that would not disturb the plants while still providing accurate readings.
Step 3: Electronic Design
April 2023
The electronic design for the project was an interesting challenge. After rigorous research, we were able to gather all of the components needed and assemble them in a way that allowed us to seamlessly insert our home prototype into one of the beds of the City garden.
Step 2: Surveying and Robust Testing
March 2023
As for any complex engineering project, we had to take the time to explore the watering system of the City's garden. We took these findings home and extended our Fall experimentation further.
Step 1: Discussions
December 2022 - January 2023
We had the pleasure of meeting with several local gardeners / urban food farmers and discussing the most important issues they face with their manual irrigation efforts. Every garden expressed interest in the prospect of having such a smart system. The official garden of the City of Southside Place was gracious enough to allow us to get a working prototype started in their garden.
Step 0: Prototype
October - December 2022
We had to run our own tests at home to test the viability of our project.