Our Designers
I designed this project to synthesize my two major interests, Biology and Computer Science. As a Biology major, I have both seen and helped with many of the arduous tasks in the agriculture industry. I felt that some of these tasks, particularly those dealing with hydroponics, could be automated and computerized so they require minimal human intervention. To that end, I planned out a rough design for an automated greenhouse in my sophomore year, and have been refining the idea ever since. I hope that the team that I have assembled can help me to bring my idea into reality, and I hope that the Pocket ‘Ponics project will go on to help people who are facing food insecurity.
I personally chose to take part in this project because I believe in the usage and importance of it. pocket ‘ponics can have such a profound impact on so many different people around the world. We have the ability to provide a safe, fresh and easily accessible food source to those who do not currently have that luxury. It’s easy for me to get behind and contribute to an idea with such relevance and meaning. I hope that after the completion of this course, our group can continue to work on making this idea a reality and hopefully bring this product to market.
My motivations for selecting this project were because of my interest in working on backend development and combining the concepts I have learned in my computer vision coursework with a real-world application in this project. I found it very interesting to be able to use computer vision principles to detect when plants in the greenhouse are ready for harvest. Additionally, I found it exciting to build a backend using the skills I learned during my summer internships.
I really like the motivation behind the project - to be able to make it easy for people to grow their own food. Where I grew up, food wasn’t always readily available and I think helping develop an idea like this is a step forward so that, in the future, everyone has the option to set up and run their own garden, even with little knowledge of plants or coding. I think this creates the best way for people to grow their own food, it’s basically a tutorial that walks you through setting up the plants, all the way to harvesting them and I think that’s a cool thing to be involved in. I’ve also been really interested in learning about databases. I will be in charge of creating and managing the database, so it gives me the perfect opportunity to begin building the skills needed to manage data systems
When this project was pitched to me the team stressed an importance on a stable and easily maintainable sensor grid array, and during my experiences with electrical engineering so far there hasn’t been experience constructing components and circuits that actually serve a purpose and link to a database structure, so I didn’t want to miss the chance to really test and put my electrical engineering skills to the test. I also have had an interest in biology so a chance to work with plants to tweak how they grow and their environments was too fun of an opportunity to pass up.
This project is the perfect balance of all my interests and hobbies. I am a current plant hobbyist with several different species that I am maintaining. I have always been into hydroponics and I have always wanted to get a chance to apply it to my current practices. I am also interested in active data collection, and storage maintenance. I am also motivated for this project because of the possible outcomes of this project on a global scale for helping people in need of homegrown produce. Another aspect of this project that motivates me is the skills that I can gain from this project and be able to apply them to my own personal projects.