Week 8

So things are starting to finally take shape. This week we were able to get a PCB enclosure printed, some progress on the phone app was made, and the aquaponics system was completed!

Aquaponics System:

In order to have something to demo our project on, we decided to make an aquaponics system out of some parts from Ikea and some PVC pipe. The system was designed to fill up with water, and then a bell siphon allows all of the water in the grow bed to drain back into the fish tank. This allows the water pump to stay on continuously and the grow bed will fill and drain as needed.

On the bottom left side of the grow bed is the bell siphon, and on the top right is the faucet for the water pump. Below sits the tank that will house the fish, and a light fixture made out of PVC pipe was use to fasten the light above the grow bed.

PCB Enclosure:

As mentioned above, we managed to get a PCB enclosure designed and printed. Cutouts were made for the wires leading to the USB cable for power, wires for the relay boxes, and holes for the sensor connections. The PSoC dev board still needs to have its respective wires soldered on to it and then troubleshooting (if needed) can begin. Protoboard was used to connect the sensors together as well as wire up the voltage regulator. Since our PCB board did not work, we still needed to provide the PSoC dev board with power. We used a simple 5v to 3.3V voltage regulator to do so.

It even has our team name on it!

Software:

This week we were also able to display readings from the sensors onto our phone app. This was another big step, and we are confident that within the next two weeks we will have an iOS app that will have basic functionality and can replace the CySmart app.

Next Week:

We plan on fully integrating all of the electronics together and mounting them in the enclosure. Hopefully by the end of the week we will have our standalone system operating. In the mean time, progress will be made on the software as well. This will enable us to use the final week to mount the electronics on the aquaponics system and finish our iOS app. We feel that we are on track to have our project completed by the end of the quarter and are looking forward to seeing a final product!