Automated Greenhouse

This essay does not describe an existing computer program, just one that should exist. This essay is about a suggested student project in Java programming. This essay gives a rough overview of how it might work. I have no source, object, specifications, file layouts or anything else useful to implementing this project. Everything I have to say to help you with this project is written below. I am not prepared to help you implement it; I have too many other projects of my own.

I do contract work for a living, which could include writing a program such as this. However, I don’t do people’s homework for them. That just robs them of an education.

You have my full permission to implement this project in any way you please and to keep all the profits from your endeavor.

Consider that we humans have used up over half our legacy of oil. At the rate we have been going, it will be gone by 2035. The price of oil, and by extension the prie of all energy will skyrocket over the coming years. The oil that made possible the green revolution with cheap fertilizer, cheap pumped water and cheap farm mechanisation will be over. The new world will be intensely local. We will no longer be able to afford to ship vegetables half way around the globe. People will be more and more relying on growing their own food or food grown very close to home.

So your job is to make that easy for them with an automated greenhouse that uses minimal energy to control irrigation, ventilation and temperature (with opaque flaps and vents). Obviously different plant species need different care, and different care at different stages of growth.

Perhaps you can use technology to analyse run-off water to figure out optimum amounts of nutrients to use. Ideally, you must detect pest infestations and take measures or at least alert the owner to the special measures needed.

Your goals are to use minimal energy, and make the system idiot proof.

Consider a system whose job it is to grow a single medical marijuana plant for a single patient. You want it so to be as automatic as possible so that even a very sick or forgetful patient can tend it. It should turn lights on and off, tell you when it needs water, when it needs more nutrients etc.

Since I proposed this idea, Aerogrow has produced a line of automated hydroponic Aerogardens. They may give you some ideas. It has a timer to turn the lights on and off. It has a timer to remind you when to add water. It has a timer to remind you to add nutrients. It has a pump to drip water through the sponges where the seeds lay. The lights are adjustable to so keep them always just above the plants. I elaborate the idea in my essay on marijuana and and my products endorsement page.

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