High-Level Project Summary
Farming is arguably the most important aspect of agriculture. It is the source of the world's food supply. When farmers prioritize biodiversity on their land, it benefits the earth. All that, and Farming's in decline. Such an important job, yet no one to do it. But what if you didn't have to do it?What if even YOU could simply sit back and relax while the program uses the sensors placed in the soil to study it.That's where SOFIA comes in; standing for Self-Sustaining, Automated, Agriculture, Farming, Input & On point :). My program takes data from the sensors in the soil spaced out and gives it water, nutrients all while you sit on your couch drinking your favourite drink. ;)
Link to Project "Demo"
Link to Final Project
Detailed Project Description
Sofia gives you an analysis of the sensors placed in a grid formation across your soil. Let’s use insufficient water as a problem. The sensors will measure the water in the soil. It is less in one hectare, it will add only there to prevent too much water which will drown/ kill the wheat plant. It will add in a schedule, so as not to just increase it, it will do it in a schedule of weeks.
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To open my project: run Main_file.py in python. it should give you this:
This showsyou the entire farm mapped to in squares so that you can see what part of farm is doing well and which isn't. Also Area 51 đŸ¤£. Anyway, then you click on any farm area and it should give you the Crop Information for that area like so:
As you can see we have five variables, which I researched and found what that wheat require in PPM (parts per million). The variables we chose were all really important for wheat to grow. especially in a dry country like Australia. Then it gives you reading from the dummy sensors (because I didn't have the money to buy real sensors and plenty of them) we can just swap out the values with real data when I can get the sensors. Finally, it shows you two buttons; 'Schedule' and 'Close'. When you press Schedule. it gives you the schedule duh.., Anyway, the schedule is spread out because you can't give it lacking nutrients all in one go, it has to be spaced out in at least five weeks.
Now you may say, what if it has too much, you can't just take it out. Well, you're right. that's why if the values are too low, the farmer or user will be notified and he can check out that area by themselves to ensure if the sensors are working properly or if the soil really is low.
My project is related to science because I am helping the natural ecosystem using technology including programming and robotics. I am solving a real-life problem by observing plants and looking at what they have compared to what they need.
I chose this project because the droughts in Australia are one of the reasons that Australia’s crops are going down. This is also leading to lower economical levels in Australia. I thought that we could help by making a more effective, efficient and accurate way to grow and harvest crops. I hope to reduce the costs of farming but harvest richer and more crops. This will help increase Australia’s economy. I did this project using python because it is a very popular programming languages and there are many components that I can use. It also has a very wide library range so it is easier to make something using python. Python is also a very simple language to learn so users can simply learn it. Also, I already know python.
My project helps the world by growing heathier and richer crops. It helps the ecosystem and also helps the planet Earth by conservating natural resources.
The practical use of my project is that it can be used to help farmers produce healthier and more crops. It could be used when water is scarce so water is not wasted on crops that don’t need it. Farmers all over the world would use this because it is more efficient and could help produce crops even in the time of droughts.
Space Agency Data
I used a lot of resources particularly to find out the nutrient and water levels required for wheat to grow and especially where these are lacking and I got a lot of my information from the Department of Agriculture.
Hackathon Journey
The limitations:
The limitations that I faced during this project were: The different kind of sensors required to do this project r3The amount of sensors in the Arduino kit my dad bought me were very limited. I had limited time to complete the project. The knowledge of the Arduino kit and farming was very little for me.
How can it be improved in the future?
I could add more than one type of crop to make this project on a bigger scale.I could use real time weather and plot size using real maps of Australian farms.I could use a different way than placing sensors per square meter to be more efficient.
References
https://www.oliphantscienceawards.com.auhttps://www.tutorialspoint.com/arduino/index.htmhttps://docs.python.org/3/index.htmlhttps://www.learnpython.org/en/Hello%2C_World%21\
https://www.publish.csiro.au/sr/pdf/SR10121#:~:text=Northern%20Australia%20and%20much%20of,-5.5)%20subsoil%20pH%20values.
I got help from my friends and family for the Arduino so I could learn about it
Tags
#Farming #Earth
Global Judging
This project has been submitted for consideration during the Judging process.