Interdisciplinary collaborative project
Project context
The interdisciplinary collaborative project is organized each year by the École polytechnique universitaire de Lille. It is a contest where teams of 6 or 7 people, each one having a different specialty, have to work to create an innovative product according to a certain thematic.
Our thematic was: “To feed oneself”.
Project details
With the other team members, we were quick to agree on what project to do. We wanted to design a smart planter that would teach children how to grow their own food. I was in charge of designing the hardware and software. I was able to quickly find an electronic board that would fit our needs: the Adafruit Circuit Playground Express. This board embeds most of the required sensors to monitor the plant environment. It could also produce sound and light to make it more fun and interactive, especially for children. I did the programming of this board in C++. I wanted to reduce the power consumption as much as possible, so I used interrupts to wake up the board only when necessary. I also designed the code to support many types of plants, each one having its own optimal growth conditions.
We were able to finalize a functional proof of concept within the allocated time and very limited budget. Of the 12 teams in our category, it was our project that was judged the best. You can find more information about our project on the Polytech Lille projects Wiki (French).
Project gallery
Project logo
Proof of concept sketch
Proof of concept
Functional proof of concept with explanatory booklet