CultiGrow

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  Bread board

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  Raspberry Pi

Inspiration

We were inspired by the fact that many people who want gardens or plants don't have enough time to routinely water and care for their plants. This is also targeted at small farmers who don't have so much land that they need to buy expensive irrigation systems but still need a quick and convenient way to water their plants.

What it does

CultiGro is an informational app that provides users details about different plants and crops. If the user is a gardener or farmer, CultiGro has a dedicated section that asks for the square footage of the land they plan to use for gardening or farming, along with the crops or plants they intend to grow. Based on this information, CultiGro calculates the water needed for the space, allowing users to turn on their watering system to irrigate their plants remotely.

How we built it

We built it on Studio using python to create the app and for the hardware aspect we used a raspberry pi to create a motor that once sent a signal while being connected on the same Wi-Fi it would start turning the spigot or in our case a bottle cap.

Challenges we ran into

We encountered some problems because this was our first time creating an app, so we didn’t know where to start. However, after some quick searches, we built our app using Python, specifically with a library called Kivy, to help with the process. Another challenge we faced was breaking one of our servo motors, which forced us to go to the store to buy a replacement. This cost us valuable time that could have been spent working on the app and other aspects of our projects.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are proud of successfully using a scraper to collect plant and crop data, as well as getting our Raspberry Pi to function correctly after dealing with a major fiasco. Another feature we’re excited about is the app’s ability to recognize misspelled plant names—if a word is close enough to the original name, the app will still take the user to the correct plant, which we all thought was pretty cool.

What we learned

We all learned a lot during this hackathon, and considering it was our first one, the amount of information was a bit overwhelming. However, some of the key things we learned include how to correctly use libraries, properly set up a Raspberry Pi, and create an app using Kivy library for python.

What's next for CultiGro

Some future goals for CultiGro involve improving the app's usability and expanding the range of hardware capabilities. We plan to refine the app's interface to become more intuitive and user-friendly. This includes streamlining the navigation, improving the functionality for searching plants, and providing a smooth user experience. On the hardware side, we plan to add more automation features. One major upgrade will be a timer system that can open the spigot at set times. We also plan to add remote spigot closure, which we currently don't have the resources or time to do. These upgrades will make CultiGro more efficient and convenient for gardeners and farmers.

Built With

• buildozer
• kivy
• python
• raspberry-pi