Senior Design Capstone Project

This year-long project produced a fully autonomous hydroponic greenhouse. This greenhouse was a first year project and was awarded first place at the Senior Design showcase. This product aimed to address the lack of profit for small scale farmers in Colorado due to the short growing season. This greenhouse can serve as a structure to expedite and streamline the seed starting process by autonomously monitoring and maintaining the environment of the closed system through various sensors and systems. I modeled an original nutrient distribution and mixing system utilizing a hopper to store dry nutrients feeding into an auger encompassed by a tube.

In addition, I integrated Arduino stepper motors to both the mixing and auger systems using originally developed Arduino code. To complete the system, I prototyped supports for the auger to remain stationary throughout the distribution process; the mixer is fixed with a coupler attachment that mounts the mixer and attaches the motor to the pipe for constant rotation of the mixer.

For the structure of the greenhouse, it was built from steel bars with dimensions of 4ft x 2ft x 6.5ft. The structure also had a ballistic nylon tent to cover the entirety of the strucutre. Within the tent, we purchased hydroponic trays to sit inside the tent on 3D printed brackets and wer able to fit 5 rows of trays with 4 trays per row. Water was to be pumped from the base of the tent to the top rows of trays, split equally into the four trays, then cycled down the subsequent trays below.

The entire system had many subsystems that would measure the environment of the greenhouse then turn on mechanical systems to maintain an optimal clilmate for the plants. These systems include sensors such as: electric conductivity, temperature and humidity, CO2, and pH.