Week 0 - Final Project: Automated Indoor Vertical Garden

Introduction and Motivation

I always wanted to have a small indoor herb garden to have fresh herbs to cook with(and fresh mint and sage for tea). I am graduating now, and while i did not succeed at maintaining the attempted garden setups, i still firmly believe that it is possible and that its positive impact is significant. So, i want to give my best attempt at creating an indoor herb garden as my farewell gift to Number Six, my fraternity and home away from home. For a system to be reliable, it cannot depend on human reliability. this is especially the case here because none of these MIT students will care or even think of the garden when it is deep into the semester. Also, for it to successfully last, it needs to allow for adding and removing plants with different sizes, pot shapes, and care requirements. The area of the garden is limited to a 81cm by 92cm footprint. I already own a very powerful grow light that is very bright but dense. This leads us to the following design considerations: - The system should be able to go for a couple of weeks without human intervention. - The system should be space efficient. - The system should be straightforward to build and maintain. - The system should facilitate the addition and removal of plants. - The system should be able to handle different plant sizes and pot shapes. - The system should be able to handle different plant care requirements. - The system should be able to handle different plant growth stages. - The system should be able to handle different plant growth requirements. Concept: Plant mounting structure: - Vertical tiered garden to make the most of the space. - French cleat system to allow for the addition and removal of plants. - Custom made mounts to hold the french cleat mounts to an aluminum extrusion frame to allow for addition and removal of tiers as well as modifying the height of each tier continuously. - Custom made modular french cleat anchors to accomodate different pot shapes and sizes. The details of this module can be found in Week 1. Irrigation system: peristaltic pump servo valves to control the flow of water to each tier The details of this module can be found in Week 11. Grow Light Mounting system: - Led panel mounted sideways to a linear actuator that continuously slides up and down maximizing the footprint that the led light can be used for and optimizing the uniformity of the light distribution. The details of this module can be found in Week 9.

Components Used

Plant Mounting Structure

• Aluminum Extrusion - Anthony
• French Cleats Mounted on the Extrusion - repurposed from old shelves in basement
• Custom Made Mounts - 3d printed
• Custom Made French Cleat Anchors - 3d printed
• Custom Made base plates - laser cut
• Custom Made ring mounts - 3d printed

Irrigation System

• Peristaltic Pump - 3d printed + ball bearings from metropolis
• Servo Valves - 3d printed casing + servo from basement
• Silicone tubing - Purchased from amazon
• Check valves - purchased from amazon
• Straight barb connectors - 3d printed
• barb plugs - 3d printed
• barbed tee connectors - purchased from amazon
• water reservoir - repurposed unused recycling bin
• Central Control ESP32 (Firmware) - Source Code
• Xiao Moisture Sensor (Firmware) - Source Code
• Pump Interface (Firmware) - Source Code
• FastAPI Server - Source Code

Grow Light Mounting System

• 2xNema 17 stepper motor with lead screws - Anthony
• Linear Rails - repurposed from a monitor mount foraged from the Stata loading dock
• Linear rail mounts - 3d printed
• End stops - Anthony
• Led Panel - purchased from amazon
• Light Actuator (Firmware) - Source Code

Media