Water Minder – Varsha Sundar

As part of Maker’s Asylum Innovation School in partnership with UNESCO, I spent a week in their makerspace at Goa, designing and creating The WaterMinder, an IoT based smart device
Uses a soil moisture sensor to detect whether the plant is running low on water and uses Telegram API to send text message reminders to water plants
Required fabricating a case to hold the sensors through laser cutting, designing and programming of the PCB circuit, calibration of the sensor and integrating the output to Telegram
Started from the idea of helping my mother water plants at home
Extended the project by conversing with my community gardeners to get their insights to install 5 such devices in my community garden
Recreated the prototype and reprogrammed the soil moisture thresholds for the plants in the garden and linked the devices to the gardeners’ phones
This not only significantly reduced the labour of the gardeners but also reduced water consumption levels in my community by almost 25-30 gallons per day
The device holds a GitHub Open Source license