PlantBob - Enrique D. & Karin H.

Although full of colorful and often expensive electronics, the modern child’s toy chest lacks an important teaching component. The ability to grow and care for a plant can be a valuable and entertaining experience for any child. All the child may need is a little help.   PlantBob is the Squarepants’d gardening toy that helps kids grow and maintain a plant by reminding them when it is time to water their plant. Using a moisture and motion sensor, PlantBob keeps an eye on the soil’s water content and notifies you when he’s getting thisty!

With some help from an Arduino One, a few sensors, and a long code, we were able to build a toy that could sense when a person was in proximity, would then take a moisture reading of the soil, and provide auditory and light feedback. This was all housed inside a small plush toy.

Our final product demonstration and prototype was a short video describing the situation in which PlantBob would be used and two posters that illustrated the features and functions of our projects:

We found a variety of sources that had completed similar projects, and were able to use their examples as guides for writing our code and completing our project:

The final code used to run PlantBob can be found below:

/*

  PLANT BOB 2013

  - By Karin Hellman & Enrique Dominguez  */

/*

  # the sensor value description

  # 0  ~500     in water

  # 500~700     humid soil

  # 700~1000     dry soil

 */

 

 /*

 SCK: pin 13

 MOSI: pin 11

 MISO: pin 12

 CS: pin 4

 */

 

/*LIBS*/

#include <SD.h>             // need to include the SD library for reading from the card

#define SD_ChipSelectPin 4  //using digital pin 4 on our arduino uno, can use other pins

#include "TMRpcm.h"         //  also need to include this library for the music playback

/*PINS*/

int motionPin = 7; //Connected to the motion sensor

int moisturePin = 0; //Connected to the moisture sensor

int moistureValue; //moisture sensor value

int motionValue; // Motion or no motion

int green = 8; //green LED on pin 8

TMRpcm tmrpcm;   // create an object for use in this sketch

/*SETUP*/

void setup() {

  Serial.begin(9600);

   pinMode(green, OUTPUT); //make the green pin an output for lighting up our led  

   

   tmrpcm.speakerPin = 9; //5,6,11 or 46 on Mega, 9 on Uno, Nano, etc

  if (!SD.begin(SD_ChipSelectPin)) {  // see if the card is present and can be initialized:

    Serial.println("SD fail");  

    return;   // don't do anything more if not

  }

  tmrpcm.play("MidWater.wav"); //the sound file will play each time the arduino powers up, or is reset

 

}

/*LOOP*/

void loop() {

    motionValue = digitalRead(motionPin);

    moistureValue = analogRead(moisturePin);

    int del = 200;

   

    Serial.print("Moition Sensor Value: ");

    Serial.println(motionValue);

    Serial.print("Moisture Sensor Value: ");

    Serial.println(moistureValue, DEC);

     

    //CHECK THE PLANT's STATUS:

    /* DRY*/

    if (moistureValue>700){          

      digitalWrite(green, LOW);   // turn the LED off

      //If there is motion, play sound

      if(motionValue == HIGH){

        //play sound 1 - dry sound  

        Serial.println("Playing sound 1");

        tmrpcm.play("LowWater.wav");

        delay(5000);

      }

    }

   

    /*WET*/    

    else if(moistureValue < 600){

      digitalWrite(green, LOW);   // turn the LED off

      //If there is motion, play sound

      if(motionValue == HIGH){

        //Play sound 2 - wet sound

        tmrpcm.play("HiWater.wav");

        Serial.println("Playing sound 3");

        delay(4000);

      }

    }

    

    /*GOOD*/

    else{

      digitalWrite(green, HIGH);   // turn the LED on (HIGH is the voltage level)

      //If there is motion, play sound

      if(motionValue == HIGH){

        //Play sound 3 - good sound

        tmrpcm.play("MidWater.wav");

        Serial.println("Playing sound 2");

        delay(3000);

      }

    }

  delay(200);

}