Week 1 (Outside Lab) - Developing Design Proposal

Figure 1. Left: Michelle and Parmpuneet working on the design proposal. Right: The list of materials.

The team met to discuss and deliberate on further details of the PlantParent design. At this point, the team decided to pursue the idea of creating a cross-platform app that would allow the consumer to easily customize the PlantParent settings (how much water the plants need, how long to go between watering) without having to reprogram the Arduino board directly. Currently, the plan is to download, learn, and use the free version of Qt, a framework for application and user-interface development.

The team also came up with a preliminary list of required materials in order to draw up a more detailed budget for the design proposal, including an electronic breadboard, circuit wires, an aquarium pump, and various other elements. An in-progress list can be seen in Figure 1.