BootsBot

[Photonic]

"The best thing for the land is the farmer's boots upon it" - unknown

That quote is the inspiration of my BootsBot project. See I have a problem, I live in an apartment and my garden is four miles away. As you can imagine I don't get out to my garden as often as I would like, so the BootsBot is an experiment in remote sensing. The idea is that it would allow me to remotely put my boots upon my garden.



I'm currently working on the local sensor package. I'm currently sending the data to Thingspeak, you can see the channel here

I plan to work on the remote sensors next, hopefully using either BTLE or nRF24L01 for communications between the controller and remote sensors. The remote sensors will contain things like soil moisture, soil temperature and cameras. I want to go wireless because cables would be a hazard to people working in the garden and could get cut by rototillers and weed eaters.

The power package will probably be a battery that is kept topped off by a solar panel. I imagine I will need to disconnect the battery and charge it up every once in a while. Hopefully not too often.

I would appreciate any comments you have.

Geoff

[david tremaine]

I'm curious, Geoff - will this allow you to do anything other than remote watering, and checking for low temperatures? Some of the guys here have mentioned greenhouse automation, which I understand a little better - there are more variables that can be controlled there, like fans, vents, even lights, I suppose. What do you hope your fully developed system to be capable of?

Thanks
- David

[Photonic]

I'm curious, Geoff - will this allow you to do anything other than remote watering, and checking for low temperatures? Some of the guys here have mentioned greenhouse automation, which I understand a little better - there are more variables that can be controlled there, like fans, vents, even lights, I suppose. What do you hope your fully developed system to be capable of?

Thanks
- David

The main function of the system is forward data to me so I can be more aware about what is happening in the garden. It also will water the garden as needed based on the soil moisture.

I plan to use a mesh network of sensors to monitor various aspects of the garden. Using a mesh network will allow me to add or remove sensors as needed without configuring the controller. For instance I might add a camera to watch for ripe fruit on my tomato plants. I won't need the camera before mid-summer so I add it then and remove when I am done with it.

Does that answer your questions?

I'm very interested in your greenhouse project as we have plans to build one at the community garden I'm a part of.