Approach 3 – AshleyD

• Bird Bath House and Garden Irrigator

This project involves building Birdhouses that use sensors to know when a bird is sitting on the perch of the birdhouse which would then fill a small basin below with water for the birds and the plants to both to share.

• Concept: This project is about re-creating Matthew Mazzotta’s Cloud House project on a much smaller scale. The project involves the same general idea as the cloud house only instead of a large building for people to sit in I’d like to create bird houses based on the same general idea. These bird houses would come in three different shapes a typical birdhouse, a more round birdhouse, and a polygon birdhouse. There is also a small half-bowl, with holes, in the front of each birdhouse which will fill with water when the birds sit on the perch. Each would have a small hole and a perch for the birds to sit on and go into. Once the birds sit on the perch this would then activate a pressure sensor that is attached to a microcontroller. Once the pressure sensor is activated the bowl in the front of the birdhouse will fill completely with water allowing the birds to drink and bathe in the water.

The small holes in the bottom of the bowls allow small amounts of water to drain from the bowl and drip down onto the plants below. For the water to fill there will be a small water pump attached to the microcontroller that will feed out into the bowl. There would also be a water level sensor to stop the water from overflowing the bowl.  The whole system would easily be powered by a small solar panel on the top of the bird houses.

On the backside of the birdhouse would be an open container for water collection. This project would run off of natural rain water and would require the user to interfere with the birdhouse in order to have water flowing continually. This concept of having the user interact manually with the birdhouse is one way of expressing that in order for our ecosystem to survive we need to take action and actively participate in its restoration and rejuvenation.

Another side aspect of this project would be to build a mobile application that allows the user to know how many times their plants have been watered for the day. They would then be able to stop the water flow, via a wifi signal, for the day to prevent the plant from being overwatered.

The technology chosen for this project was selected specifically for use with birds. The technology is quite and should hardly be noticed by the birds, the motor should pump the water quietly into the basin in the front of the birdhouse. The sensors would be hidden from sight, with the exception of the solar panel, and thus removing them from any contact with the birds.

• Users: The ideal user for this project would be someone who has a smartphone and also has a love of birds and gardening. That being said anyone could use this project in their own backyard, it does not require a smartphone for use. Nor will it require the user to have any prior knowledge of the technology used in the project.

• Materials and Time: Adafruit Pro Trinket (9.95$),  Lightobject EWP-7L9 Mini DC Water Pump (8.95$),  Force Sensitive Resistor (5.95$), Water Level Sensor Depth of Detection Water Sensor (2.99$), Wifi Reciever (3.45$),  5v Solar Panel (7.99$), Wood materials (Roughly 10$ per house), Bowl (1.00$ per house).  Time to build, about 2 days per house from start to finish working about 3 hours a day. The cost to pay myself would be about 48$ per house at 8$ per hour. Totaling each house to about 98.28$. This cost could easily be cut by going to mass producers for products and getting more product at a cheaper price per unit.