Urban GreenAccessible Produce for the Modern World

Mike Foo ▪ Eric Ganzert ▪ Tim Horita ▪ Anita Khoshnavaz ▪ Mahbod Tork-Tatari

April 15, 2016

Presentation Overview

Motivation & Background

Overview

Team Roles

Budget & Funding

Business Case

Problems Encountered

Timeline

Skills Development

Acknowledgements

Questions

Motivation and Background

Urban Green’s EcoGarden is a fully automated indoor produce growing

system. It has the following features:

Aeroponic watering system

Adjustable control of:

Temperature

Humidity

Sunlight hours per day

Can grow plants up to 2’ in height

Sealed enclosure; no mess

Display screen feedback

Product Need

Many people have limited access to fresh healthy produce

Urban Centers

Climate not conducive for farming

Remote location

Prohibitive cost and availability of healthy produce contribute to

Diabetes

Heart disease

Obesity

Low energy: after meal crash

High Level Overview

Team Roles

To improve productivity, the team was structured into four major roles.

1) Research and development (R&D)

Research all necessary information for the completion of the project

Design the systems to fill all functional and design specifications

Document the research and design process

2) Fabrication

Manufacture all mechanical and electrical components of the main enclosure

Manufacture the control panel

Test system for any mechanical or electrical design failures

3) Software development

Design and develop software

Debug and troubleshoot any issues in the code

Write all necessary documentation

4) Support

Purchasing

Team Roles

In the following areas all members contributed equally:

Documentation, System Design, Research, Purchasing

Enclosure & Watering System Construction Eric

Electrical Installation & Wiring Eric, Mike, Tim

Control Panel Construction Mike, Tim, Anita

Software Design Eric, Mike

Budget and Funding

Expenditure Breakdown Sources of Funding

Original budget estimate: ~$750

Market

Currently in Canada & the US ~275 million people live in urban environments[1][2]

Limiting financial viability to the top 10% still almost 30 million consumers

Consumers in extreme climates

Unskilled gardeners

Potential laboratory applications

Competition

aerofarms.com

aeroponics.com

aerogarden.com

supecloset.com

Pricing

It cost us ~$760, but we believe if re-done we would be able to

reduce that amount

If we were manufacturing on a larger scale we believe that we

could get our per unit cost to almost $500

Similar products go for $1800-2000

We could go below, to ~$1700 and still make $1200 per unit

Problems Encountered

First Design

Expensive

Complicated

Difficult to install misting valves

Challenging to source all

required components

Final Design

Professional advice

Straightforward construction

One stop shop

About $150 cheaper

Problems Encountered

Early Design

Ambitious but problematic

Serial communication

Python and C mismatch

Increased production cost

Final Design

Much simpler for design and end user

Touch screen replaced by slider controls

Runs exclusively on Arduino

Project Timeline

Initially estimated timeline

Final timeline

Skills Developed

Hardware

AC and DC wiring standards

Woodworking and

fabrication

Compatibility of electronic

devices

Sourcing and purchasing of

materials

Multiple iterations: testing

and re-evaluating design

Software

Coding in Python and C

Arduino digital and analog

inputs/outputs

Retrieve sensor data

Avoiding loop delays

Display screen programming

Providing real time

feedback to display

Did we reach our goals?

Goals Reached (Most)

Control software

functional and efficient

Actuators installed

Successfully reading

sensor

Display screen feedback

Watering system

implemented

Enclosure construction

successful

Goals Not Reached

Smartphone connectivity

not enabled

Webcam not

implemented

Touchscreen not added

to the control panel

We didn’t feel that these

features were essential

to the base model

Summary/Conclusion

Beneficial

Allow for more people to grow their own produce regardless of

environment

Provide a controlled growing environment, good for research

or for new gardeners

Future Plans

Create more elaborate user interface

Reduce production costs

Design different models for different price points

Acknowledgements

Funders ESSEF Fund

TA’s Soroush Haeri

Mona Rahbar

Hsiu Yang Tseng

ENSC 305/440 Professors Steve Whitmore

Andrew Rawicz

Miscallaneous Advising Gary Shum

Mike Sjoerdsma

Marek Syrzycki

Hydroponics store employees

References

[1] Statistics Canada. (2011, February 4). Population, urban and rural, by

province and territory [Online]. Available:

http://www.statcan.gc.ca/tables-tableaux/sum-som/l01/cst01/demo62a-

eng.htm

[2] United States Census Bureau. (2010). FAQ [Online]. Available:

https://ask.census.gov/faq.php?id=5000&faqId=5971

Questions?

Control System Demo

Full System Demo