Build Blog 8: Finishing Touches and Testing

Hi everyone! This week's blog post is focused on our team's progress finishing touches and system testing!

Finishing Touches

Over the past week, we've:

• finished manufacturing the plant trays

• added cover panels to reflect the plant lights

• finished assembling the electronics enclosure slider

• Designed and fabricated flow restrictions for even flow between the trays

• and Attached all water tubing and resolved draining noises

Completed System. Zhenbo for scale!

We've also had a chance to transplant our lettuce plants that were germinated in parallel, into the system. Looking tasty!

Lettuce growing in the system

Software Testing

Lastly, we were also able to run a system level test overnight, in which the water pump was kept on and pH and EC levels were automatically adjusted. This was made possible by our automated software that safely handles water overflows in the trays, should they arise.

The screenshots below show sensor readings of the various sensors in our system overtime. As shown below, the pH and EC were automatically adjusted overnight to the ideal growing conditions for lettuce plants.

And here is a live view of the plant trays:

Remarks

This wraps up the manufacturing and building aspect of our capstone project.

Looking forward to seeing you next week at our symposium! Till then we'll be growing lots of lettuce and maybe even eating it 😉.