Hydrobase

THE PROBLEM

Increasingly there are a number of different systems and technologies being developed to support urban agriculture, ranging from Grove Lab’s Ecosystem to the MIT OpenAg initiative, each attempting to support effective food production. Yet the majority of these systems suffer from the same central problems, in that they require tight integration between the hardware and software. While this is certainly understandable due to the complicated nature of hardware and software interactions, it creates substantial barriers for entry.

SOLUTION

The solution we developed was to create an open cloud-based hardware agnostic control and data collection platform for hydroponic growing systems. We also developed a suggested, though not required, hardware system that works with the cloud-platform in order to both demonstrate the capabilities of the system as well as serve as a potential blueprint from which others could build upon.

SCOPE

While our project had a rather audacious scope at the beginning, the scope has been reduced as we have developed the system as well as learned more about the domain. Specifically, the project focused on supporting situations where accurate plant data collection and environmental maintenance is critical, such as research, commercial or experimentation applications. This is not to say that these are the only situations under which the system could operate, but through our user research we found these to be the most applicable use cases for such a system.

TARGET USERS

The target users for our system essentially fall into two different categories but both share a common characteristic of being heavily invested in growing plants.

• Technically inclined, botanically disinclined

  This individual is comfortable with information system but has little experience working with plants and does not fully understand what they need or how to effectively support them. This user is predominantly focused on exploration and experimentation as they are comfortable with data extraction and analysis but need an effective entry point for hydroponic growing.

• Botanically inclined, technically disinclined

  This individual understands what plants need and is interested in accurately recording data about the plants but does not have the technical expertise to set up an automated system on their own. This user is predominantly focused on leveraging technology to support their existing practices in either research or commercial applications.

View Presentation Link to 4d Design Link to Project Report

Our Setup

Real Time Data Visulaizations