HydroHand: Optimizing Community Hydroponics
class. Design Concept Generation / Engineering Design
project. Senior Design Project
team. Armand Pappas, Ben Klassen, Andrew Pomposelli
role. Design Generation, CAD, Prototyping
date. September 2021 to May 2022
Pitch Video
Problem
Inspiration
We began by working with Harlem Grown, a non-profit that focuses on fighting food inequality by donating the crops harvested in their hydroponic facilities to the Harlem community. James Ankenman, the farm coordinator at Harlem Grown, said that the most detrimental issue is when in 1 out of every 10 crop cycles, they wake up to see all of these crops dead due to a major leak.
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In addition to leaking issues, Harlem Grown must also overcome the inability to optimize key system parameters
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Current Experience
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Solution
The HydroHand Experience
To solve this problem for Harlem Grown and other community scale hydroponics operators, we designed an easily attached device that both solves the leaking problem and automates the tedious tasks of managing a hydroponics system. Hydrohand comes equipped with a pH and Nutrient sensing and dispensing mechanism, plus a leak detection method that is all controlled remotely through a smart phone app.
Hydrohand is designed specifically for the small-scale hydroponics experience.
User’s will begin by clamping the HydroHand device to the side of the reservoir where both the distance sensor and the dispensing outlets are facing the water.
On top of this, users will not only be able to view the current sensor readings, but the entire system’s history. This is especially beneficial to Community Gardens as they would like to use the graphs as visual aids to help teach hydroponics to the community.
Hydrohand is designed specifically for the small-scale hydroponics experience.
Design
Through feedback and design analysis, we have worked to refine our design into a detailed 3D model that resembles exactly what is needed to be ordered or 3D print for a physical prototype. To best tackle the multitude of design challenges, we broke HydroHand down into multiple subassemblies.
HydroHands simple user experience is the result of us solving a complexity of design problems. In order to do this, we broke the prototype down into manageable sub-assemblies.
To accomplish this, we utilized a wifi enabled arduino, which allowed us to connect to Blynk Blynk is a cloud-based platform that allowed us to build an interface that easily connects to our physical device.
HydroHands simple user experience is the result of us solving a complexity of design problems. In order to do this, we broke the prototype down into manageable sub-assemblies.
Testing & Feedback
Site Visits
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With the our prototype fully assembled and connected to the app, we were ready to bring HydroHand to our potential users, Harlem Grown and Brooklyn Grange.
User Feedback
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When testing the device at their facilities, we were able gain valuable feedback. The positive feedback included an appreciation for the compact design, the off-site monitoring, and the leak alert system.
Future Iterations
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