Mayur Pagote's Upcycling Project Turns a Potato Chips Tube Into a Smart Plant Pot
Fancy doing some good for the environment at large and one houseplant in particular? This could be your next project.
Student and maker Mayur Pagote has designed an upcycled plant pot that gives you insight into how your green friend is feeling — by turning soil moisture readings into a simple graphical icon.
"At some point in life you might have heard someone saying that plants have life, but we cannot talk to them. They can't show emotion, they can't convey messages, then how will we get to know," Pagote explains. "So, in this project, we will give life to a plant and we can see the plant's emotion. Just think of giving a life to you favorite plant. There are many aspects which need to be taken into consideration, i.e., water content, gas, nutrients, nitrogen purity, fertilizer, chemicals in soil. But we will keep it simple as I don't have enough components. So, for this project, we will generate emotion by calculating the water content of the soil."
Soil moisture sensors are in no way new: most work by sending out an electrical signal between a cathode and an anode and measuring the resistance. The higher the resistance, the lower the moisture level. It's this type of sensor Pagote chose for the project, connected to an Arduino Nano R3 or compatible and a compact OLED display panel — and housed, along with the plant itself, in an upcycled potato chips tube.
The electronics, including a lithium-ion battery to power everything, live in a sealed-off section at the bottom, with a cut-out for the display; a second section of the tube houses soil, the plant, and the moisture sensor. The display shows a simple icon depending on the measured moisture levels in the soil: too dry and the plant's iconic face will "cry"; if it's not quite as dry as that, it will simply look "sad"; when the soil moisture is good, it'll look "happy" — but if you go too far and over-water the plant you'll see a "choking" icon.
"In future versions, I will incorporate various aspects such as gas levels, nutrient value, nitrogen content, etc., to make it a perfect companion for your favorite plant," Pagote says of plans to expand the project, which is documented in full with source code on Instructables.