The Foginator project is a fully functional greenhouse system that utilizes a new growing technique referred to as Fogponics.  Fogponics is a mix between aeroponics and hydroponics.  The Fogponics idea was created in attempt to start a new way of farming that can be done vertically instead of horizontally.

Before going into much detail on the project i would like to introduce you to the Foginator team.  Our team consists of three members.  The first is Tj Thomas, who is a circuits expert that is currently attending the University of Scranton for his undergrad in electrical engineer.  The next team member is Nathan Williams.  Nate is a gifted mechanical mind and is a wiz at implementing and integrating projects.  Nate is also going to school for his undergrad for electrical engineering at the University of Scranton.  The final member of our group is myself.  I am currently attending the University of Scranton for electrical engineering.  As a hobby over the last break, i built and interfaced an RC car to an iPhone app.  With these our backgrounds in mind the next task was to breakdown the project into sections and decide who would tackle each task.

The project was broken down into three main tasks; The structure, the sensing, and the communication.   We decided that Nate should tackle the structure of the project which consists of making the greenhouse and also finding a way to deliver fog to the plants.  We choose Nate for this aspect, because his background made him best suited to finish this portion of the project.  TJ was tasked with the sensors aspect of the project.  This consists of reading and storing the data that is needed in order to control the conditions within the greenhouse environment.  Some of these sensors include lighting levels, humidity, and various temperature levels.  With the structure and the sensing aspects of the project underway this left the communication aspect for myself.  The communication system we decided on was an Android device that would allow an individual to read the sensor from an easy to use app.  The application will also allow a user to override the individual  components of the structure.  This involves the lighting, drains, and airflow of the structure.

So far, the project is moving along very smoothly.  The box is mostly assembled with sensors in place as well as the fogers and fans.  The circuitry was recently soldered and mounted within the bottom chamber and wired together.  For the IEEE Student Activities Conference the app was changed to a webpage that was hosted on the Raspberry Pi.  The Website allows a picture to update every 30 seconds as well as a list of various sensor data in a table that contains
|sensor names | sensor values| sensor units |
This was a nice easy way to breakdown the project, however we would still like a way to update the sensor values from within the webpage itself.

The project received a 2nd place award out of 20 schools that attended.

 

 

To read more about this project visit the Fogponics link to see our projects website.