Raspberry pi sensors and camera

What:

Students will code and design sensors to be used in the greenhouse / hoop house to track plant growth. The reason I chose this project is to show students how coding can connect with the Internet of Things to provide data and, possibly, control conditions in a space.

Materials: 

• raspberry pi / SD card / monitor / keyboard / mouse
• raspberry pi camera
• temperature sensor
• moisture sensor
• python programming app

Time: NA

Challenges: 

My hope was to pilot this with the FIRST Lego League team members which are a self-selected group of students who meet after school, but we ran out of time preparing for the December 1, 2018 competition. Remaining tasks:

• Set up the raspberry pi's for programming python
• Work out wifi details.
• Identify a group of motivated students who would be a good fit for a pilot program

Narrative:  
The Lego League team met with Daniel VanNoord, ACS grad and local engineer, who presented on possible sensors and how they have the ability to monitor temperature, humidity and light. However, the group's project proposal for the FIRST Lego League competition--to investigate ways to grow plants in space--was not a good fit for setting up sensors in the hoop house since the project required more research and preparations for the presentation which did not leave room for piloting the sensors in the hoophouse.

I may switch my project to a more workable one for this year. However, I plan to leave the possibility open of revisiting this idea in the future.