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Introduction

John Abramson - Computer Systems Engineering Major

Phillip Kwon - Mechanical Engineering Major

Bendik Larsen - Industrial and Management Engineering Major

Tyler Lau - Electrical and Computer Systems Engineering Major

Max Nozick- Mechanical Engineering Major

Yuqing Peng - Materials Science and Engineering Major

Johnson Zhu- Mechanical Engineering Major

Problem Statement

People in urban environments can’t grow their vegetables because they don’t have the soil to grow their vegetables in. People want to be more green and minimize their pollution output as much as possible.

Mission Statement

Our mission is to provide those living in urban areas - as well as others living in areas without access to garden space - easy-to-access, fresh produce by providing them with a simple hydroponic system for their home.

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Target Customers & Requirements

Primary customers:

People with

A) Limited access to fresh produce.

B) No soil to grow their vegetables.

C) Small living area

Secondary customers:

A) Elderly people who lack mobility.

B) People who like to garden in their home.

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Survey questions

1) Do you like to garden?

2) Would you be interested in moving your gardening inside?

3) How often do you buy food at the grocery store?

4) How much would you be willing to pay for this gardening system?

5) How much floor space would you be willing to dedicate to your indoor gardening?

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Survey results

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Customer needs	Interpreted needs	Target Value	Unit
Safe	1. Nutrients and materials are non-toxic 2. Electrical wiring is concealed	0	Deaths per million people
Affordable	Low cost	100-200	Dollar
Able to grow multiple kinds of vegetables.(No flowers)	Types of produce	4-10	Kinds
Easy to maintain	Number of hours spent managing the system per week	<2	Hours per week
Not too loud. Sounds like a whisper	Low noise generation	<30	Decibel
Bookshelf shape	Small Volume of Device	Length: < 650 Width:<1570 Height: <2000	mm mm mm
Easy to repair with easily replaceable parts	Number of replaceable parts	> 6	Parts
Little-to-no smell	Degree of smell	<25	Olf

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Decision Making Matrix

	Ebb/Flow	Aeroponic	Drip
Size (15%)	0.5	0	0.5
Cost (20%)	1	0	0.5
Noise (5%)	0.5	0.5	0
Installation (5%)	1	0.5	1
Maintenance (10%)	0.5	1	0.5
Safety (25%)	1	1	1
Yield (15%)	0.5	1	0
Ease of Build (5%)	0.5	0.5	0.5
Weighted Total	65.19%	57.50%	55.00%

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Performance Specifications

Specification	Target Range
Plant Yield	5 - 10 individual plants
Power Consumption (Growing Light)	120W maximum
Power Consumption (Pump)	15W maximum
Reservoir Capacity	10 - 25 gallons
Pump Strength	60 gallons/hour minimum
Growing Light Intensity	350 PPF minimum

Tyler

Plant Yield - Plays into our plant variety customer requirement. Actual number is dependent on the size of the plant grown

Power Consumption (GL) - Growing lights in general consume a large amount of power (b/c they need to resemble sunlight ie. very bright). Power capped for obvious reasons (higher value = higher electricity bill + danger, not ideal)

Power Consumption (Pump) - Not kept on nearly as often as the growing light so the actual power consumption of the pump is actually fairly negligible. However, again, for safety reasons (and since the pump is submerged in water), a lower power pump that meets the pump strength requirement is ideal

Reservoir Capacity - Larger tanks are harder to maintain but require less maintenance (replacing the water). 10-25 gallons is a good manageable amount (not too large nor too small, doesn’t take up too much space)

Pump Strength - Weaker pumps must be left on longer to accomplish the same thing, but pumps that are too strong will rely on the overflow system to function in order to prevent flooding (both good and bad thing, moving water through overflow system regularly keeps it unclogged, but overflow system generates lots of noise)

Growing Light Intensity - Vital to plant survival, growing light must be intense enough to produce healthy crops even in areas devoid of sunlight eg. closets. Weak growing light intensity will result in scrawny crops.

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Overall System Design

Periodic flood and drain cycles to hydrate plants and provide nutrients
Grow light on timer to provide consistent day/night cycles

PVC Frame

Growing Light

Reservoir Case

Reservoir Bin

Fill and Drain

Tray

Growing Medium

Timer

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System Performance Testing

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Subsystem 1: Reservoir Case

Purpose: To house and provide easy access to water solution reservoir, and to act as a base for entire structure.

Test Method/Selection Criterion: Maximum weight held by box to maintain safe levels of deformation (.07 inches deflected downward over time). Must also take up less than ten square feet of floor space.

Result: Can maintain 50 lbs of approximately uniformly distributed force without any danger of material failing. Only needs to maintain about 10 lbs, which causes a downward deflection of .01 inches initially, which will increase to a maximum of .015 inches over time. At 30 in X 30 in, this case takes up 6.25 square feet of floor space.

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Subsystem 2: Reservoir Bin

Purpose: Holds nutrient solution for plants

Selection Criterion:

Material: Plastic

-Lightweight, Transparent and Low cost

Size: 2.05’X1.56’X1.15’

-Survey shows 41.7% of customers willing to allocate 2-10 sq. ft.

-Can hold about 17 gallons

Ease of Maintenance:

-Dolly added to slide out Reservoir Bin

-Hose easily removed to pump out water

Thank you Max. Now I am going to talk to you about what is inside the big wooden box, and that is the reservoir bin. The reservoir bin is the system where the nutrient solution is stored and later on transported to the plants. To begin our decision making process for the reservoir, we wanted to select a material. Really there were only two materials that are easily accessible and would work for our system, Metal and plastic. We decided to go with a plastic bin, because it is a cheaper and more lightweight material than metal. And also it is transparent, so the consumer could easily see if the bin began to be dirty and had to be cleaned. The next criteria for deciding on which bin to purchase was size. From our survey, 41.7% of customers said they would be willing to allocate 2-10 sq. ft. of space for a hydroponic system. We also calculated that about 17 gallons of water would be pumped out of the bin daily. To keep with the daily cycle, we wanted to have a bin that held about 17 gallons. In the end we went with a ?X?X? bin, because it was the cheapest bin that fit all our criteria based on the customer. Since the reservoir bin is the only system that is not fully automated, we wanted to make sure that maintenance was as easy as possible. As you can imagine, a bin filled with 17 gallons of solution can be quite heavy. For this reason, we added a dolly so that the customer can easily slide the bin from under the casing and add solution if needed. After a while, the solution in the bin may become dirty and needs to be changed. For this reason, we made the hose easily removeable. Instead of having to pick up the heavy box to dump it over a sink, the customer can merely put the hose in the sink and pump out the solution. Now this is merely our prototype bin, for the final product we would like to make a few changes. First off, we would want to replace the dolly with a drawer like system. This will serve the same pupose as the dolly, but will be a more aesthetically pleasing system. We would also divide the reservoir bin into two smaller bins. That way, you can have two solutions of varying PH levels if you decide to add another layer. We would also like to manufacture our bin so that we can cut costs and also customize our bins. Now I will pass it off to John to talk about the fill system

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Subsystem 3: Fill System

Purpose:

Fill planter layer with mineral-enriched water
Drain water after plants and substrate are soaked

Goal(s):

Minimize leftover water
Pump manageable flow through pipes
Prevent noise and splashing

Prototype Implementation

Implementation Breakdown

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Subsystem 4: Overflow Drain System

Purpose:

Empty planter layer of water after fill phase
Prevent planter layer from overflowing during the fill phase

Initial Design

Implementation of Drain System

Final Product Design

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Subsystem 5: Planter Frame

Purpose:

To hide the hosing and electrical wiring
To provide support to the planter box and electrical layer

Selection Criterion:

Materials Selection: PVC, Wood, or Steel Shape: Circular or Rectangular

Result: Formed a well-constrained rectangular PVC frame that both houses hosing and supports the planter box when filled with water.

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Subsystem 6: Grow Light

Purpose:

To provide sufficient grow light for plants to photosynthesize.
Provide a pleasant living room glow

Result:

A piece of tarp is added to maintain the intensity of the light and also prevent excess light from damaging eyes.
60W Fluorescent lightbulb used (generates 3200 lumens ~ 350 PPF)

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Subsystem 7: Tray/Growing Medium/Timer

Purpose:

Tray: To set the growing medium
Growing Medium: To fix the plant roots
Timer: Set time to limit the usage of pump and lighting

Result:

Tray: A pre-made plastic tray with 3 drilled holes.

Growing Medium: Rockwool Growing cubes

Timer: A power strip with multiple programmable timers.

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Cost Analysis (Prototype)

Began by researching and estimating prices

Concluded on a $350 budget

Excess money for unforeseen issues

Cut cost for most items

Excluded some materials

Unforeseen materials needed

Drainage valves and Epoxy putty

Used $287.62 of budget for final prototype

$62.38 below total budget
$3.33 below expected cost

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JOOOOOHN CENAAAAA 🎺🎺🎺🎺🎺🎺🎺🎺🎺🎺🎺🎺🎺🎺🎺🎺🎺🎺🎺🎺🎺

Plywood

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Results and Discussion

Sealing connecting joints so that they are watertight

Solved using epoxy putty and waterproof rubber cement (Weld-It)

Outflow rate of overflow drain less than inflow rate of pump

Added additional overflow pipe, increased outflow pipe radius

Distance of light from plant

Decreased vertical height of system in final product

Excessive noise generated by overflow drain system

Planter tray cover in final product

Plywood not the most structurally sound material

Higher quality wood used in final product

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Team Reflection

What went well:

Team worked well together, acknowledging each other’s strengths and weaknesses in order to form a more cohesive unit.
Team members were able to provide advice and assist in subsystems that were not theirs, without losing focus on their own.
Team was able to communicate problems and successes to the group at all stages of the project.

What didn’t go well:

Many unexpected trips to the hardware store for pieces the team didn’t expect to need were, while expected, less than ideal.
Design process, while ultimately effective, wasn’t very organized and could have been streamlined.

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Conclusion

Prototype built was fully functional

Nearly completely automatic

Able to fulfill most of customer requirements
Customer requirements that we were not able to fulfill/fell short on that would be improved in the final product:

Sound
Plant Variety

Easy to Maintain→ Look at the grow light, pump, growing solution and amount of time maintaining each (I think we’ve met this requirement)
Safe→ Look at tarp, heat emission from light?, electrical wiring, screws, and box (we’ve hidden as much of the electrical wiring as we could, some screws were protruding from the box.)
Replaceable parts (The amount of replaceable parts falls under the requirement of 8. The replaceable parts include: tarp, light, tubing, pvc pipes, pump, growing cups, growing medium)
Low Sound (Fill, pump, and light fulfill this requirement. Drain fails this. No idea on how to deal with this)
Affordable ( Our total cost of the prototype is greater than that of the customer’s range, but buying in bulk and not having to so many second guesses on cost will reduce this to hit that price range))
Can grow a variety of fresh vegetables-(In our prototype we were able to grow 8 plants in 8 growing cubes in 4 cups using 2 plants: spearmint and sage. The customer is looking for 4-8. Growing solution allows for other plants to grow as well. Future research into supporting things as tomatoes and peppers can be used to expand the # of different plants we can grow )
Smell→ Growing solution by itself fails the requirement, but by diluting it in water
Bookshelf Shape→ our length(2.5 ft) is too large compared to desired length of .65m (2.1 ft) our width passes (2.5 ft) vs. 1.57 meters (5.15 ft). Our height 4.74’’ passes vs.. desired height of 2m (6.56 ft)

Passed

Failed

Sound
Affordable

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