3.30 · A Plant Pot That Waters Itself

A Plant Pot That Waters Itself
A student presents her team’s project in about one minute.

Our project is a plant pot that waters itself. The problem we wanted to solve was simple: in exam weeks, nobody in our lab could keep up with the watering, so the plants dried out.

So we came up with a small system. A sensor measures how wet the soil is. When the soil gets too dry, a tiny pump, which is smaller than a matchbox, sends water from a tank. It all runs on a solar panel, so we got rid of the batteries.

We tested it for four weeks. All six plants survived, and the tank never ran out of water.

The main advantage is the low price. The downside is that the sensor has bare metal legs, and they corrode: after four weeks, they were already rusty. Next, we’re going to try a capacitive sensor, whose metal parts are covered, so it should last much longer. I’m really looking forward to testing it. Any questions?