Cornichon

Topic

Our aim is to develop and product that will automatically water plants with minimal user interaction, to make it easier for people to grow their own ingredients or just to have plants for aesthetic purposes around the house. Our vision is set on creating something transportable and easy to setup and use. We also think aesthetics are very important, as every home and person are different, our product should have a range of designs that can be chosen from to match the users style. The device should be ergonomic in shape and have minimal intrusion to its surroundings.
The device will be run from a raspberry pi 3 mini computer, this will be the brains of the system and is going to regulate the plant and make sure it stays alive and watered. We envision that the product will be a pot plant with variable size options, with the tech embedded in a compartment on one of the pots sides, the device will come with a power cord and instruction manual. A big part of our project is the affordability of the project itself, as the electronics that make up the project cost around $100 in its current state, we would hope that in production, the parts would be purchased in bulk from suppliers which could reduce the cost for consumers.

Motivation

Our motivation for this project is the lack of greenery in the modern home, there are not enough people growing their own food and veg, so we are trying to solve this by incorporating growing into an easy, portable solution that can instantly be setup and used. We find this project interesting as it combines two very different interests into one, to give the user something easy to use and non intimidating to get started with.
In the current IT Market, alot of these similar ideas come up, companies are trying to find products that can assist in everyday life with the help of automation / technology, and smart home type appliances are on the uprise like the Amazon Alexa and the Google Hub. We would love our product to fit in with these trends and become one with the technology / smart home landscape. Working on this project, generating plans and hopes, will show future employers that we as a team can put ourselves to a project and develop it into something we believe in and want to create.

Landscape

The landscape for a product like ours is dry, after a while of searching the internet for similar products, there are only a few that have the same sort of idea. Most of the products are external and require the user to plug the water hoses into individual plants to let them drip. Only a handful use electronics, and thats where i see our product coming in. Although these other products are cost effective, our product caters to those who like smart-tech within the household, and those who want something aesthetically pleasing in their homes.
One example that can be used is the Kamoer product linked below. It has phone connectivity and enables the user to redirect water though pipes into multiple pot plants. This product differs from ours as it is more intrusive in the way of aesthetics, the devices many pipes are visible and the watering mechanism is external and needs to be setup by the user. Our product hopes to eliminate the need to setup anything, and make it easy to plug-in and use. The pipes need to be cut manually on the Kamoer and the pump needs to have an external water source. Whereas on our product we hope to implement a water resevoir that is built into the casing that can easily be filled, and is not visible. Kamoer Watering System: