Eco Art Approach — Eli Farnham and Matt Loewen

Eli Farnham and Matthew Loewen

For this project we will design and build a vehicle that maintains the life of a plant.
 The function of this vehicle will be to drive around a plant to get all the resources it needs to not only survive, but prosper. To help stay in the realm of Eco-Art this vehicle will powered by solar panels with a small battery backup.  The resources need to the keep the plant alive include water, sunlight, air, and human compassion. To achieve these conditions the vehicle will be equipped with sensors such as ultrasonic, light sensor, and temperature sensor.  These sensors will allow the plant to detect soil moisture, temperature, and human interaction. These sensors along with advanced programming would give this plant a sense of self awareness. The plant will be able to detect if it needs water, evaluate how much energy it would take to get the water and achieve its goal if it deems it important.

This plant will become a basic ai system. It will learn where to get water, where the sunny places are in the building, where to stay warm and how to find human companionship. These decisions will lead to the plant living a much fuller life than a plant would spends it like on a shelf ignored collecting dust.  It will be interesting to see if this plant would grow faster than its dormant counterpart.

This robot would show people that plants, like all living organisms, need certain resources to survive. Plants can’t live in a world that is polluted and toxic. Hopefully seeing a plant drive around the IMRC, for example, would make people think about the future of the environment more than if they just saw a plant on a shelf. The real purpose of this project isn’t to make a high tech plant but to get people to stop and think about our environment by replacing everything natural about a plant growing and adding technology to assist it.

Budget:

Arduino: $20

Wood: $8

Laser time: $10

Motors: $40

Motor Shield: $30

Plant:  $10

Breadboard: $5

Wiring and misc. = $35

10 hours to program = $200

Total: $349

Timeline:

Construction on the robot will take place in 4 stages.  The first will be the conceptual which is mostly outlined here.  In this first step we will research vehicle constructions, motor types, AI learning algorithms, and basic plant life (the do’s and don’ts).  From here a parts list will be decided upon and dimensions of for the parts will be taken into consideration for the vehicle design (see figure 1). This design will then be laser cut.

Week two will consist of putting together all of the purchased components together and figuring out how to correctly operate each.

Week three will be constructing the learning algorithms and getting the vehicle to operate as desired.

The final time will be any remaining bugs and or errors with the design or implementation.

April 10 – April 17 : Planning and designing vehicle.

April 18 – April 24: Construction of the vehicle and mounting of plant.

April 25 – May 1: Programming the controls and calibrating the sensors.

May 2: Showing off the project to the class.

Figure 1. First draft of the construction. The first piece will be the top of the car, this is where the plant will sit alone with the solar panels. The second is where most of the sensors along with the battery. The final two pieces are the motor mounts. These pieces will connect to the sides of the middle piece.