What?

AutoGS, short for Automated Greenhouse System, was our culminating project for Grade 12 computer science. It consists of a glass tank with features like controllable LEDs for lighting, sensors (temperature, humidity, moisture), and automatic watering with the help of a water pump.

Why?

My friends and I wanted to do a project that we thought was cool, although it was beyond our knowledge and set of skills at that time. I will highlight this in the “Challenges” section. There was not any certain reason on why we chose this project, but we knew that we did not want to do some common project like a game on Unity or some “basic” project.

Images

Challenges

The first challenge was doing the project idea itself, because I was picking up programming back up and I was pretty much a beginner at that point. I had no knowledge of Arduinos, electrical components, breadboarding, and so forth. This project idea seemed impossible, or atleast, very challenging for a first’s beginner project. Either way, my friends and I stuck onto it. We took our first steps by ordering an Arduino kit and doing a lot of learning through YouTube and Googling.




Besides technical challenges, it was not a personal project. I was working with my teammates, my friends. We had different ideas, so there were some discussions and conflicts on what we should do. This allowed me to work on leadership and communication skills, along dealing with situations when ideas conflict and both parties are stuck on it.




I worked on the front end and circuitry, while my friends worked on the back end of the project. After completing our parts, the next challenge was integrating everything to make the system work. It took more communication and problem-solving to get the automated greenhouse system working.

Result

The result was an actual working automated greenhouse system; what we, or atleast I, thought was nearly impossible at the beginning, now exists and works. My team and I finish off our computer science class with a high grade




We gave the greenhouse to our outdoors teacher for his class




Last but not least, this project was the beginning of my interest in learning about electronics and programming; also what shifted my interest in doing mechanical engineering to mechatronics engineering. I recognize this project as one of my biggest moments for my career, and what started it all.