Members	Student ID	Faculty	E-mail
Marijn Borghouts	1449532	BMT	m.m.borghouts@student.tue.nl
Bert de Groot	1459597	ME	g.d.groot@student.tue.nl
Nando di Antonio	1465325	ME	n.z.d.antonio@student.tue.nl
Dorien Duyndam	1305107	EE	d.a.duyndam@student.tue.nl

Subject of this project

The following concept was the basis on which we started designing. (Of course, things change during development when new insight or limitation come to light. But this is normal when designing a larger project and it shows that we have learned new things, based on which adaptations are made.)

The idea is to create a smart plant system that notifies the user if the plant needs more water or more or less sunlight. The target group is a social workspace or carehouse for mentally disabled people, Down syndrome in particular. These people can see or hear when a plant needs attention and get that plant what it needs. The mentally disabled will therefore do something useful (taking care of plants) which is valuable to them and the surroundings. The caretakers in this social workspace will also get work relief because of this system because they don’t have to tell the impaired person what to do with the plants anymore. The plant pot will probably get a nice face so that it looks friendly. It will need water sensors implemented in the soil and light sensors around the plant to monitor the amount of light the plant gets. The pot will also give positive feedback when given water or sunlight.

Approach

In order to realize this idea, a well-structured approach need to be made and followed. First a schedule and a plan was made together with a global task-division, the plan, task-division and logbooks can be found in Appendix A. Then the goals were defined to make sure we had something to work to. To broaden our perspective of our target audience we did literature study on several subjects, from articles of the state-of-the-art, to information on plants and their effects on humans and of course articles on our target audience: people with Down Syndrome.

The next step was to make analyze whether our idea had purpose for user, society and enterprise and how to improve our idea on their needs and preferences. When we had a clear vision about the goals and the target audience the technical part could begin. We had to make a list of requirements, preferences and constrains of our idea and future-prototype so that we could finally start building it.

Before the actual assembling, a list of electrical components needed to be made as well as a design for the housing, software and hardware. So that finally the hardware would be ordered and assembled, the housing could be printed and the software would be coded and thus the prototype could be made.

Parallel to the technical part, we still needed to test whether our design in the end would have the effect on the user, society and enterprise as we wanted it to have. We decided that the user was the most important of those three and thus we contacted actual care houses if we could place our prototype in their house for a few days or a week to see whether our design would have potential for a real manufactured product.

We needed to address also the enterprise-part of the process in order to gain publicity. In the first place this was necessary for us to convince care houses that our prototype was worth testing. However, in the second place, in a real assemble process, you need costumers and sponsors before the prototype can actually be made.

The point came where we finished assembling two prototypes and we had found two different care houses where we could test our prototype, now named Fleur. Therefore an experiment was set-up and a hypotheses must be written. After the test week, the results needed to be processed and a conclusion and discussion on the test and on the whole process should be made. And last but not least the presentation to our colleagues and tutors must be prepared and given.

Every step of the way will be discussed in much detail in this Wikipedia page.

Goals

To make a successful project and in the end prove that the design was successful (or not), we need to define clear and measurable goals. Besides this, we need to think about how the achievement of these goals will be proven.

Our main goal is to add something to the daily lives of people with DS. We want to give them a way to spend their time, and give them something to care for. Interacting and caring for the plant should be a hobby, something that they enjoy doing and spending time on. This is a beautiful idealistic goal that improves the wellbeing of these people and can therefore be marketed as a healthcare product that could even be covered by healthcare insurance.

This can be measured by keeping track of how much time is spent interacting with our pot compared to a control plant that does not have our systems attached to it. Secondly, we can question the users about their overall experience with our product. We do this by asking the users to rate individual aspects of this product on a 5 point scale as an improvement over normal plants? This way we get a quantitative measure of what our system adds to the weekly routine (time and enjoyment wise).

Our second goal is to improve the independence of the users with DS and teach them how to care for something. Our product provides routine and clear simple instruction. This will help the people with DS to take care of the plants themselves without any external help from caretakers. This improves their independence which is a trait that is heavily valued by the caretakers we interviewed. When these people become more independent they require less care and gain more freedom, which improves their quality of life. Secondly, this product will develop the skill to care for something. This is a useful skill for people who need care. If you teach these people basic caring skills they can help themselves and each other better.

Testing the increase in independence and caring skills from 1 week of usages will be difficult since changes are expected to be small and these characteristics are not so simple to measure. Hence this will probably be assessed by the caretakers who will be present during the testing stage.

Our third goal is to remove some workload from the caretakers. We know that it is not always easy to work in the (health)care sector and especially with the covid-19 situation the pressure on these people is high. If our product manages to independently keep the people with DS occupied, it will mean more free time for the caretakers to spend on others work or just relax a bit so this goal ties in with the second goal.

This can be tested by comparing the time a caretaker spends on helping these people take care of normal plants VS the time spent installing and explaining our product. If our product proves to be too complicated to use, we can get feedback from the caretakers that it took too much time and energy to adapt to the new system and that it was not as independent as we had hoped.

Our fourth and least important goal is to improve the health of the plants. Having healthy plants benefit the air quality and the overall look of a space [SOURCES]. Secondly, it is nice if the care institution has to less regularly buy new plants, this saves time and money (which are already scarce resources).

This can be tested by starting off with two plants of the same type and health. One will be the control plant and the other will be planted in our pot. Both will be placed in the care home. After the testing period, the health of both plants will be assed. We do realise that assessing plant health is a bit subjective and that the sample size is really low, but we have to make do with what we can do in the restricted time and budget. It is also interesting to note that a smart pot that improves plant health is also an interesting product for the agricultural sector and greenhouse industry, seeing how dutch farmers need to produce with high efficiency to compete in the market because of the high prices for ground.

Objectives

Besides these goals, we also defined the following more practical objectives to strive for.

Cost efficient/Affordable

The prototype should make optimal use of the available resources. Furthermore the components and assembly process should be as cheap as possible to reduce the total production cost, making the design cheaper for users (or obtaining a bigger profit margin for the vendor)

Easy to use

The prototype should be easy to install and operate. This is especially important considering the target audience of mentally handicap people. This product is designed to help these people with doing more complex tasks. If the operation of the product is not extreme straight forward it will only work counter effectively.

Friendly/Positive reinforcement

We want the product to interact nicely with the user. The product should communicate with the user in a friendly manner and compliment the users when they perform an action. This makes the product more pleasant to use. The explicit positive reinforcement confirms to the mentally disabled people that they are in fact doing a good job.

Deliverables

The first deliverable will be this wiki page. It logs our progression and helps the tutors and other people with an interest in our project to follow the progression and developmental steps of the project.

The second deliverable will be 2 physical prototypes of our smart plant pot.

The third deliverable is the final presentation, in which we present our project to our teachers and peers.

Literary study

Sources on existing smart greenhouse control systems

[1] Abbassy, M. M., & Ead, W. M. (2020). Intelligent Greenhouse Management System. 2020 6th International Conference on Advanced Computing and Communication Systems, ICACCS 2020. https://doi.org/10.1109/ICACCS48705.2020.9074345 This paper mentions an robotic intelligent greenhouse management system. Which reads out the water level, humidity, and measures the moisture content of the soil based on real-time area data. With arduino components.

[2] Kaneda, Y., Ibayashi, H., Oishi, N., & Mineno, H. (2015). Greenhouse environmental control system based on SW-SVR. Procedia Computer Science, 60(1). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.procs.2015.08.249 This paper includes information about the general design of a greenhouse automatic environment control system.

[3] Kokieva, G. E., Trofimova, V. S., & Fedorov, I. R. (2020). Greenhouse microclimate control. IOP Conference Series: Materials Science and Engineering, 1001(1). https://doi.org/10.1088/1757-899X/1001/1/012136 This paper discusses (the lack of) a mathematical model to control greenhouse temperature and heat transfer.

[4] Kumar, A., Singh, V., Kumar, S., Jaiswal, S. P., & Bhadoria, V. S. (2020). IoT enabled system to monitor and control greenhouse. Materials Today: Proceedings. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.matpr.2020.11.040 This paper includes diagrams of arduino (components) and wiring to assemble a greenhouse management system.

[5] Sri Jahnavi, V., & Ahamed, S. F. (2015). Smart wireless sensor network for automated greenhouse. IETE Journal of Research, 61(2). https://doi.org/10.1080/03772063.2014.999834 This source includes information on all types of smart sensors aimed at a smart greenhouse.

[6] Von Borstel, F. D., Suárez, J., De La Rosa, E., & Gutiérrez, J. (2013). Feeding and water monitoring robot in aquaculture greenhouse. Industrial Robot, 40(1). https://doi.org/10.1108/01439911311294219 This paper contains the design of a robotic system to feed aquatic organisms and measure water physicochemical parameters in experimental aquaculture ponds. Our own system is focused on plants but the robotic monitoring of environmental parameters is of interest here.

[7] Zhang, C. (2018). Greenhouse intelligent control system based on microcontroller. AIP Conference Proceedings, 1955. https://doi.org/10.1063/1.5033697 This paper contains a chart with components of a greenhouse control system, including information on the circuitry per module, and a flow chart of how the software should work.

[8] Zhao, R., & Lu, L. (2020). Automatic Temperature and Humidity Detection and Alarm System for Greenhouse. IOP Conference Series: Earth and Environmental Science, 512(1). https://doi.org/10.1088/1755-1315/512/1/012099 This paper designs and implements the monitoring and alarm system of temperature and humidity of a greenhouse.

[9] Carder, C. (2004). Irrigation systems. Rocky Mountain Construction, 85(20), 5. Retrieved from https://search-proquest-com.dianus.libr.tue.nl/trade-journals/irrigation-systems/docview/196317404/se-2?accountid=27128 A paper about the irrigation technology being used currently

[10] Mudiyanti, R. (2019). Design watering system on greenhouse using microcontroller with matrix based. iopscience.iop.org. 1280 022067 This paper is about desiging a watering system on a greenhouse using microcontroller with matrix based

Effect of plant caring on health

[11] Loram, A., Warren, P., Thompson, K., & Gaston, K. (2011). Urban Domestic Gardens: The Effects of Human Interventions on Garden Composition. Environmental Management, 48(4), 808–824. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00267-011-9723-3 This paper talks about how taking care of plants works stress-relieving.

[12] Pedrinolla, A., Tamburin, S., Brasioli, A., Sollima, A., Fonte, C., Muti, E., Smania, N., Schena, F., & Venturelli, M. (2019). An Indoor Therapeutic Garden for Behavioral Symptoms in Alzheimer’s Disease: A Randomized Controlled Trial. Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease, 71(3), 813–823. https://doi.org/10.3233/jad-190394 This paper is about fardening as a therapy for people with Alheimers disease.

[13] George, D. R. (2013). Harvesting the Biopsychosocial Benefits of Community Gardens. American Journal of Public Health, 103(8), e6. https://doi.org/10.2105/ajph.2013.301435 This paper is about how community gardens work for people with other mental illnesses, so it could also work on people with down syndrome.

[14] George, D. R., Kraschnewski, J. L., & Rovniak, L. S. (2011). Public Health Potential of Farmers’ Markets on Medical Center Campuses: A Case Study From Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center. American Journal of Public Health, 101(12), 2226–2232. https://doi.org/10.2105/ajph.2011.300197 This paper is about how farmer-markets work positively on the health of people.

Plants and how to care for them

[15] Weatherley, P. E. (1976). Introduction: water movement through plants. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. B, Biological Sciences, 273(927), 435–444. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.1976.0023 This paper explains how water movement in plants work.

[16] Chao, D., & Lin, H. (2010). The tricks plants use to reach appropriate light. Science China Life Sciences, 53(8), 916–926. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11427-010-4047-8 This paper explains how plants make sure they get the right amount of light, so not too much and not too little.

[17] Drury, & Sally. (2011). Watering, bedding plants and tubs. Horticulture week, 34. https://search-proquest-com.dianus.libr.tue.nl/trade-journals/watering-bedding-plants-tubs/docview/872335545/se-2?accountid=27128 This paper explains when it is the best time of day to water certain plants.

[18] Rogers, P. (1993). Watering is crucial to plants: [ALL Edition]. Telegram & Gazette, G1. https://search-proquest-com.dianus.libr.tue.nl/newspapers/watering-is-crucial-plants/docview/268517145/se-2?accountid=27128 This paper explains why it is important that plants get the right amount of water.

[19] Vanderbilt, V., & Grant, L. (1985). Plant Canopy Specular Reflectance Model. IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing, GE-23(5), 722–730. https://doi.org/10.1109/tgrs.1985.289390 A model for the amount of light specularly reflected and polarised by a plant.

[20] Roberts, E., & Burleigh, M. (2010). Watering Systems for Success in Growing Plants, Using Low pH and Ammonium Nitrogen. Cactus and Succulent Journal, 82(6), 266–275. https://doi.org/10.2985/0007-9367-82.6.266 The paper describes what changes should be made to the water that is used in the system in order to get the best results.

The syndrome of Down

[21] Angela P. Presson, Ginger Partyka, … Edward R.B. McCabe, Current Estimate of Down Syndrome Population Prevalence in the United States, The Journal of Pediatrics, Volume 163, Issue 4, 2013, Pages 1163-1168, ISSN 0022-3476, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpeds.2013.06.013. A paper about how often the syndrome of down occurs

[22] Robert A. Catalano, Down syndrome, Survey of Ophthalmology, Volume 34, Issue 5, 1990, Pages 385-398, ISSN 0039-6257, https://doi.org/10.1016/0039-6257(90)90116-D. This paper goes really deep into what the syndrome of down actually is

[23] Mark Selikowitz. Down Syndrome. Vol 3rd ed. OUP Oxford; 2008. Accessed April 22, 2021. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=nlebk&AN=467605&site=ehost-live This paper is about raising children with down syndrome

[24] Chapman, Robin & Seung, Hye-Kyeung & Schwartz, Scott & Bird, Elizabeth. (2000). Predicting Language Production in Children and Adolescents With Down Syndrome. Journal of speech, language, and hearing research: JSLHR. 43. 340-50. 10.1044/jslhr.4302.340. This paper is about the language skills of adolescents with down syndrome.

Other sources

[25] Wieseler, N. A., Hanson, R. H., Chamberlain, T. P., & Thompson, T. (1988). Stereotypic behavior of mentally retarded adults adjunctive to a positive reinforcement schedule. Research in Developmental Disabilities, 9(4), 393–403. https://doi.org/10.1016/0891-4222(88)90033-9 A paper about a study which evaluated the indirect effects on stereotypic frequency when the value of a concurrent fixed-interval reinforcement schedule for adaptive behaviour was varied. 13

[26] Vijendra Babu, D. (2020). Automatic Irrigation Systems for Efficient usage of Water using Embedded Control Systems. 993 012077 A paper about a similar project being done

[27] Gafni, V. (1999). Robots: A Real-Time Systems Architectural Style. ACM SIGSOFT Software Engineering Notes, 24(6), 1–18. https://doi.org/10.1145/318774.318786 This paper gives a broad description of what robots are

USEr analysis

This anaylysis of user, society and enterprice is made based on literature study as well as contact with caretakers of mentally disabled people among which people with Down Syndrome.We sent out an email with a questionnaire for hypothetical use. The mail together with the statements we asked to the caretakers and the results of those are given in appendix B. Next to the several emails we send to multiple carehouses, we held close contact with a specific caretakers that one of us knows personally. The result of the interview with the latter care taker can be found in appendix C.

User

The main target group for this product is people with a mental disability. The product is designed to help the users overcome some of the challenges that they face due to their disability. "Mental disability" is a very broad term and can out itself on a whole spectrum of problems, ranging from difficulty with speaking to recognising emotions. For the sake of making a more tailored product, we have decided to focus on people with Down syndrome. This decision allows us to gather more specific needs and requirements from the users (which can be found in its own section). Our robot will notify the user by speech when a plant needs more or less water, or more or less sunlight. This way the product helps the user take care of a plant without having to do complex tasks like remembering when and how often a plant needs water or sunlight. Our robot gives simple, chopped up clear instructions so that the user knows what is being expected from him/her. After a task is completed, the robots will give confirmation in the form of positive feedback to the user. This helps assure the user that a task has been successfully completed. This way our product makes caring for plants more accessible for people with Down syndrome. which has all types of benefits [11], [12], [13], [14] The secondary users are the caretakers. The product is meant to be used by people with Down syndrome but is meant to be bought and installed by the caretakers. This device helps relieve workload from the caretakers by automating a part of the managing and task distribution process in a social work environment. Therefore it is important to always be mindful of who the users of specific functions is and what their needs and capabilities are.

User Needs and Preferences

People with Down syndrome have different needs and preferences compared to people without intellectual disabilities. A good product should address all of the user's needs and as many possible preferences. So in order to develop a good product one should have a clear idea of what these needs and preferences are. To gather this information we have called several care institutions asking them if they would be interested in helping us answer some questions and/or help test the first prototype. Secondly, we decided to also do a literary study into this subject to obtain even more information from other sources. From the literature, we have found that language development is moderate to severely compromised in some children with DS and that therefore most individuals with DS also have less developed language skills at all ages in life compared to people without an intellectual disability (Lemons, 2010) and (Chapman, 2000) To accommodate for this lack in linguistic skills there are a few things that one can do to improve communication with people with DS. 1)Use repetition 2)Show that you are pleased 3)Be patient.

Of course, there are more items, but these were the ones that we identified to be the most important and the ones that we could play into. We also made a questionnaire which we sent to multiple care institutions, from the results we concluded that it is very important to call the attention of people with the syndrome of down via multiple channels. For example with sound, display on the screen and blinking LED lights, because it might be hard to hear something in a very noisy room. The most important approach to these people is being positive and cheerful and to keep the message simple and clear. It is very important to remove cables from sight, they love cables and seeing what happens when they pull on them.

Society

Some say that a society is measured by how it treats its weakest members. We realise that our product will not solve any world crisis or drastically improve the farming capacity of social workspaces, but it helps people who need a little bit more care. Our robot allows people with Down syndrome to perform work more easily and giving them a way to spend their day and make themselves (somewhat) useful. This benefits society by allowing better participation across all layers of society and show empathy and care towards those who need it the most. Secondly, this helps relieve some of the workload of social caregivers who are often overworked. Financing for this sector is generally low and our product might save some valuable time by automating some simple repetitive tasks.

Enterprise

This product of course has to be developed and manufactured. This creates jobs and potential revenue which is all good for the economy. Products of these types do already exist [1], [2], [25] but these are mainly focused on increasing greenhouse yield. This product has a different goal and is therefore unique enough to not have to deal with fierce competition in the market, giving it a fair shot at succeeding in our opinion.

Branding, themes, and names

A good marketable product needs a brand name. With its own name, customers can more easily refer to your product and you create a more memorable experience. After a good reputation has been established your brand name can help sell other products since people know they can expect quality products from a reputable brand. Lastly, branding helps to set your product apart from competitors. There are entire studies and companies that solely focus on branding and marketing. Branding is not really an area on which we have decided to spend our limited resources for this assignment. However, we did brainstorm on some names and themes for our smart plant pot. We have concluded that theming the pot was unnecessary for this prototype. We considered giving it a pop-icon theme that would be recognised and liked by most users, but this very quickly leads to problems with copyright. Secondly, we feared that theming the pot would take away attention from the display and lights that the pot uses to gain the attention of the users in its surroundings. Thirdly, we thought that the caretakers might prefer a clean white design as opposed to a spiderman-pot with a tulip in it. The caretakers are the ones who have to purchase and install the system, so their preferences are also of interest. For the name of the product, we have considered a few options. In the end, we have decided to go with FLEUR. This is a common Dutch name that is easy to remember and pronounce. FLEUR is a name derived from words for flower or flowering, we found this to be fitting since our product is designed to house a plant, of which many have flowers.

RPC list

Requirements

The pot needs to be able to sense the moisture content of the ground
The pot needs to sense the amount of sunlight it receives
The pot has to be able to identify the plants' needs based on sensor input
The pot has to be able to notify the user what the plant requires
The pot needs to be able to hold a plant
The pot cannot harm the user via electronics or any other way
The pot has to be waterproof for when spill accidents happen
The pot has to be strong enough to withstand being moved around. This being gently or roughly.

Preferences

The pot should have a speaker to address the users in a positive and friendly way
The pot should make minimal small talk like asking how the other person is
The pot should tell the users what it requires "I am thirsty, could you give me half a glass of water?"
The pot should thank/compliment the users after a task is completed.
The pot should display a smiley face then the plant is happy
The pot should display a watering can when it is thirsty
The pot should display a sun when it needs more sun
The pot should display a fire when it needs more shade
The pot should have flash blue lights when it is thirsty
The pot should flash yellow lights when it needs sunlight
The pot should flash red lights when it needs shade
The pot should alarm the user when the batteries are nearly empty
The pot should be easy to set up and install

Constraints

The electronics and the housing cannot be too big so that the pot becomes unpractically big
The assembly of the pot cannot take more than a week to fit our 7-week planning
The components cannot be too expensive since we are on a uni-bound budget
The pot cannot be too big in order to fit the manufacturing process due to the limited 3D printer size available to us.

Electrical components

BoM

Component	Costs	Amount	Total costs	Link to webshop
Earth Unit	€ 4,-	1	€ 4,-	https://www.tinytronics.nl/shop/nl/platforms/m5stack/unit/m5stack-earth-unit
Light Unit	€ 4,-	1	€ 4,-	https://www.tinytronics.nl/shop/nl/platforms/m5stack/unit/m5stack-light-unit
M5STACK M5Core Gray - ESP32 Development Kit	€ 30,-	1	€ 30,-	https://www.tinytronics.nl/shop/nl/platforms/m5stack/m5core/m5stack-m5core-gray-esp32-development-kit
DuPont Jumper wires Male-Female	€ 0,75	2	€ 1,50	https://www.tinytronics.nl/shop/nl/kabels/prototype-draden/dupont-jumper-draad-male-female-20cm-10-draden
M5Stack NeoPixel LED strip	€ 10,49	1	€ 10,49	https://www.conrad.nl/p/makerfactory-m5stack-neopixel-strip-mf-6324774-led-lamp-met-connectoren-malefemale-35-v-23-cm-na-tape-cut-2108258
Material 3D printed pot and box	€ 17,50	1	€ 17,50	https://www.filamenten3d.nl/product/pla-filament-hotorange3d/

In the prototype, the wires were not connected correctly. This problem can easily be solved by adding an M5STACK 1-6 PaHub Unit. This unit costs around 6 euros and one of them is required for each design. This will end up with a final price of € 67.49 For every ‘Fleur’. In this project we made two prototypes, the final amount of money used for this course is, therefore, € 134.98.

Software

The first thing Fleur will do when she wakes up is checking her values from the sensors. She will check the humidity value is in above a certain threshold of humidity and check whether the light sensor detects a certain value within the right range.

If everything is alright, the screen will show thumbs-up and the text that she is doing alright. She will then be put in a rest-situation and wait for half an hour for the next check. The time delay of thirty minutes was chosen, because if Fleur asks for attention more regular she would be very irritating. However, if the caretakers and the clients didn’t notice Fleur asking for anything and the system would wait any longer, it could be harmful.

Considering the situation that during the check anything irregular would occur, like the plant needs water, or it wants more or less sun, Fleur will ask for attention by singing a certain tone and shine red LED-light. Depending on the situation, the screen will print the exact question the system has and a corresponding picture. In the case that the plant needs water, the screen shows a droplet-symbol. In case of the need for sun, a sun-symbol will be shown and if the plant wants shadow, a cloud-symbol will be visible. Moreover the combination ‘more-sun-more-water’ and ‘less-sun-more-water’ are situations the system can ask for.

The symbols and question for the needs of the plant will be visible until the system detects that the plant has been given the proper attention. Therefore after helping Fleur (or if the user wants a direct update of the current situation), the most-left button should be pressed. By pressing that most-left button, the system will do an instant quick check of the sensors.

At night, the system can be put manually to deep-sleep mode for 12 hours by pressing the middle and right-most button simultaneously. This is chosen because this way the system will not go to sleep-mode accidently for 12 hours.

Below a flowchart of the code is drawn for a better overview of the code.

flowchart of the code

foto invoegen

3D-printing

When the idea of FLEUR came to enhance the joy of life of mentally disabled people, some challenges had to be overcome in the design phase of the prototype. As can be read in the section about the conversation that was held with a caretaker, all the wires have to be hidden away. Apparently, these wires are an incentive for the patients to pull on them, this may lead to dangerous situations. Besides this, there was a constraint for the size of the product. The size could give problems during manufacturing but the product can also become too large to be practical in use. There were many more challenges to overcome, these can be read below.

Making the prototype housing

When it came to deciding on how we would make the prototype, a decision was made quite quickly. The method of 3D printing was chosen. This was a feasible solution since one group member owns a 3D printer and thus it was very forgiving in lead/shipping times. And when problems would start to arise, this was a process that could be done at the university. For the whole process, a 3D design of the pot had to be made, this process can be read below, and also research had to be done on the plastics that were going to be used for the FDM printer. After the print was completed some post-processing had to be done before FLEUR was ready to be assembled.

Research on plastics

When doing research on the plastics there were only 3 possible solutions for the printer set-up at hand. Some plastics had to be discarded since they would be too abrasive, some were discarded due to their properties after printing, some were discarded if the manufacturing process could not be met, there is a limit to the temperature the printer can reach, and some were discarded due to the fact of limited to no stock being available. What plastics remained? The 3 most common 3D printer plastics on the market: PLA, PET-G and ABS. They all have their own strengths and weaknesses and these will be elaborated on further.

PLA

PLA is the most commonly used 3D printer filament due to its versatility. PLA is easy to print since it does not tend to warp1 and/or cause stringing2 during printing and it is relatively strong, it is available in many colours and it is very easy to work with during post processing. It also does not require high temperatures during printing. And one other side benefit is that PLA is biodegradable. On the other hand, PLA is not the strongest material on the market, but this is not that much of a concern for our project. What is of concern are the properties PLA has when it is in contact with sunlight and water. Since PLA is a bioplastic it is not hydrophobic for longer periods of time nor can it be in direct sunlight for longer periods of time. This seems catastrophic but while doing the research it was found that 'for longer periods of time' means more than 2-3 months. For this project the use will be around 1-2 weeks at most. Lastly it is needed to mention that PLA deforms at not the highest temperature, ~50-60C, it will not melt but the when applying pressure indentations and/or layer separation could occur.

PET-G

PET-G is the little brother of the engineering plastic PET, PET is used for example in water bottles. PET-G is a ductile material, it is a hydrophobic material by itself, this does not mean that the print will be waterproof however, it has a good resistance to sunlight, it is relatively easy to print and it starts deforming at a temperature of ~70-75C. Some disadvantages are that PET-G is prone to cause stringing during printing and it is more inclined to warp than PLA, but these are minor issues with PET-G. The biggest problems with this plastic were two fold. The first major problem was availability, the source that was used to acquire the plastic only had 1 roll in stock and we needed 2. The second problem had to do with the print bed that was being used. The print bed is made of glass with a special coating, while printing there is a significant chance that the PET-G could fuse with the glass of the print bed. A solution would be a PEI sheet for the printbed but this could not be acquired in time.

ABS

In general is ABS the most ductile material of the 3. ABS is also very heat resistant, it starts deforming at a temperature of ~100C. But there are some major disadvantages. First of all, ABS is not the most resistant to UV-light, in this aspect it has about the same properties as PLA. But the biggest drawback to ABS is its tendency to expanding and/or contracting during printing. This means that the print is not only very inaccurate, the tolerances are not met due to the expanding/contracting of the material, but it is also hard to make 2 3D printed parts that would need to interact with each other.

Conclusion

So what material was chosen to use for the 3D printing? The answer is PLA. It was readily available, it does not have the best properties but also not the worst. The only thing that might be a small concern is that it can deform at around 60C, this would be a problem when the pot is placed above a radiator of the central heating system when it is cranking out a lot of heat. But since the prototype is made during late spring/ early summer this would not be a problem. Also, since this project will use the pot for 1-2 weeks, it is no problem that the pot will start to break down after 2-3 months in continuous sunlight or being used as a water reservoir for that amount of time.

1) Warping is the tendency of a material to deform when it is being cooled. This can lead to structural inaccuracies, parts not being able to merge together for example.

2) Stringing can happen with certain 3D printers during printing. Thin lines of plastic are dragged across the part during manufacturing resulting in an end result that needs more post-processing in order to get a nice finish.

Post processing

After a print is complete, it is likely that some post-processing has to be done. In our case this meant removing the support material, doing some finishing to the pot and making the pot waterproof. These processes are elaborated on below.

Removing the support material

When making a print like this it is important for the person managing the 3D printer to keep the orientation of the parts in mind in the slicer software. This can in turn greatly reduce or increase the amount of support material that has to be printed. Support material is sacrificial plastic that is used to make sure that the print can be made by the printer, this then can be easily broken off in the post processing phase. In general this support material can be avoided by making some smart design choices as well. A 60 degree overhang for example is the most aggressive form that most printers can handle without printing any support material. This step is crucial in minimizing the amount of plastic that is used and in keeping the print time as low as possible.

Finishing

Now that the support material has been removed, the tedious work of finishing the parts begins. In general, a 3D printed part is quite smooth and has a nice look to it, but there can be some oozing on the side or the seam is visible to the outside. These are both the effect of the way a FDM printer works. Since the printer works in layers, the starting/end point of a layer gets over extruded plastic, or a seam, this can be filed down and sanded to match the rest of the print.

Waterproofing.

The last process would be waterproofing. Unlike some test prints, the pots were not completely waterproof. This was fixed by using a 2 part epoxy, this would ensure that the flower pot would not leak.

Designing the prototype housing

First design

When coming up with a design the first thought was to make a flower pot comprising of 2 compartments, 1 compartment for the electronics and 1 for the plant, see Figure 1. The idea was that the bottom compartment would be filled with all the electronics and the top compartment would function as a flower pot. The moisture sensor would stick up into the flower put and the light sensor would be sticking out of one of the compartments in order to sense light. In the end it was thought to be too difficult to make the flower pot water tight with a sensor sticking in from the bottom. This could be avoided with a designated rubber seal, but then still it would not be an ideal solution. Another hinderance with this design was its size, it would only have a couple of mm of clearance during manufacturing.

Figure 1: First design implementation.

Second design

Learning from the design faults in the first iteration of the design sketch, a new concept was thought of. The main concept would remain the same, there would be 2 compartments. 1 compartment for the electronics and 1 compartment for the plant. The main difference between the first and second iteration of the design lies in the way how these compartments interact. Instead of making a sort of lid on a jar concept, the compartments would be 'merging' together. As can be seen in Figure 5. The 2 compartments for the design will be explained separately. This design was also used for the 1st prototype of FLEUR, during assembly of this prototype some minor design changes were made for the 2nd prototype.

The top compartment.

Figure 2: Top compartment second design

The top compartment of the design has multiple functions, it has to hold the plant, it holds the sensors, the LED strip and it makes sure that the least amount of water can get to the bottom compartment. The design can be seen in Figure 2. In order to hold a plant and to make the design waterproof was quite challenging since the chosen manufacturing process was a 3D printer. When looking online how it could be done with the settings in the slicer software an article was found by a company called Prusa Research[XX], a leader in consumer 3D printers. This article stated that it would be possible with certain parameters but even then all the stars would have to align. When these parameters were changed, the end result was that the print was not waterproof. Thus, in the end it had to be done during post processing. As far as holding the plant itself was quite simple, a plastic flowerpot from a retailer was used as an insert into the compartment, this way there would be an extra layer of protection between the electronics and the water. This also has the added benefit that changing a plant is a simple process, the inserted pot has regular dimensions, meaning that plants in similar pots can be found at retailers. But this is not necessary, some soil can be put in the compartment for the flower and FLEUR would still function as intended. For the sensors cut-outs have been made. For the light sensor, a cut-out in the top was made so it can sense the amount of light. The placement is opposite to the screen, this was done for ease, the sensor would be able to sense sunlight through a window and then the screen would still be pointing towards the room. For the moisture sensor a cut-out had to be made through the pot holder. This gives the risk of compromising the waterproofing but this compromise had to be taken. As mentioned during design 1, all the cables had to be out of sight whilst trying to avoid making any holes in the bottom of the pot holder. Thus it was chosen to make the hole in the side of the pot holder, and the hole is placed under a 30 degree angle. The thought process being that the water on the sensor itself would follow the path of least resistance and pointing the sensor down would lead the water down giving the least amount of problems. The holes for the sensors are meant to be press fits, meaning that no adhesives or fasteners will be used. This is why they are designed to be as big as the dimensions of the sensors, with the tolerance clearance for the printer being ignored, this gives a hole that is slightly smaller than the sensor(+- 0.2mm) giving the chance to make the fit perfect with some files. If the fit turns out to be too loose, a piece of tape will be used as a gasket. Ideally, a rubber O-ring would be used but that is not feasible, unfortunately. Besides the sensors, also a designated spot has been chosen for the LED strip, this is a simple track in which this strip can be placed.

Article Prusa research: https://help.prusa3d.com/en/article/watertight-prints_112324

The bottom compartment

Figure 3: Bottom compartment second design

Figure 4: 4 Bottom compartment second design, showing the cut-outs for the Core and all the wiring

The bottom compartment needed to hold the M5Stack Core along with the powerbank and all the cables. And it had to give strength to the whole design. The design can be seen in Figure 3 When it came to holding the Core several cut-outs were made in a wall of the bottom compartment. Some cut-outs held the Core in place whilst others were there to accommodate for the cables that needed to be connected to the Core. in order to hold the screen in place, there is also a design feature at the back. This is a slot that fits around the BUS unit that is directly connected to the Core, this will neutralise movements in the horizontal-plane. Limitations in the vertical-direction are achieved by a combination of these cut-outs and this design feature. These can be seen in Figure 4. There is enough room to accommodate 1 of the 2 power banks that were used during the design process, there is no particular orientation that these need to have.

Put together

When both compartments are put together, there are 2 prongs in the top compartment and there are 2 holes in the bottom compartment. These holes and prongs limit the movement in the horizontal-plane, movement in the vertical direction will still be possible however, this was done to make it easy to charge the powerbanks if needed and to do repairs.

Figure 5: Second design put together

Figure 6: 1st prototype

Figure 7: 2nd prototype

The prototypes

Also, 2 prototypes were made. One in white, the first prototype, and one in red, the second prototype. There are small changes between the 2, when putting prototype one together some minor mistakes were found in the design and these were changed for prototype 2. These changes were the length of the track for the LED strip and the height of the design feature for holding the BUS unit of the Core.

Promo Video

A promotion video was made in Kickstarter style. This video is useful for the final presentation, to convince the target audience that they needed to test our prototype, and to buy our product (enterprise). This video needs to be very short <100 seconds. Otherwise, people lose their attention. The video should clearly show what our product is, what it does, and how it looks.

As an example, you could look to nearly every IndieGoGo/Kickstarter video. The following guide for making a video was found online:

The hook

Your Kickstarter videos have to get their attention. If you don’t do this, nothing else matters. This could be through the video title or those first few impactful seconds that draw the person in to learn more.

Tell a memorable story

Your video should tell a story. If you are trying to get funding for something that solves a problem. The problem should be demonstrated through a visual narrative. Stories hold attention. They show rather than tell. People want to find out what will happen next. Work the narrative to hold attention to the very end. And after the viewer walks away, they should be left with an imprint, an inability to forget what they just saw, and hopefully and urge to share.

Get people excited

Yes, you are very excited about the movie for which you need funding, but is this excitement translating to someone who knows nothing about you. What is unique and special about your idea? Why should the contributor want to be a part of your mission? And don’t underestimate the power of music to inspire excitement.

Make sure visuals match the script

If you reference a mouldy cheeseburger in the script for some strange reason, we need to see one. The visuals need to synch to what the actors are saying to reinforce your message.

Don’t over-explain it

You don’t want to be too vague. People should know what they are funding and need to know that you have a plan. But a lengthy video that explains every detail of the process will not serve you well. The most successful videos are concise 2-3 minutes.

Our video can be viewed on youtube via this link https://youtu.be/aYFWqo6niwQ

Finding test locations

In order to test our 2 prototypes we needed two care institutions who were willing to test our product. This was hard since the caretakers are generally very protective of their clients. Covid-19 probably also played a role. We as students are statistically the most infected part of the population. Getting a corona infection inside a place filled with disabled people would be terrible. But eventually, 2 respondents from our general questionnaire agreed to test Fleur. After this, a phonecall was setup to discuss practical details and to make sure that these people knew what was going to happen and what we expected from them. Below is the contact information for the persons that agreed to test Fleur.

Tineke (has a daughter in a care institution)

Tineke has a daughter (Lotte) who has Down syndrome. Lotte lives in a home with other mentally disabled people (7 in total of which 4 have Down) additionally a few caretakers help in the household in Veldhoven.

Malu Coppens

Works at SDW de plantaan as caretaker.

Designing an experiment and making a hypothesis

Experiment

To test whether our smart pot achieves the stated goal we will perform two simultaneous tests that are one week long. For each test, we will need two similar plants that are in similar health. The plant that we have chosen for this experiment is a tulip with a bulb. This was done because 1) they are available in this spring period. 2) They are flowers so we expect them to show relatively large changes over the short testing period of one week, e.g. they will hopefully bloom 3) Because they are flowers we hope that the caretakers and the clients like them. 4) The blub prolongs the life of the tulips compared to cut flowers. This way we want to prevent the tulips from dying naturally within a week. 5) bulb-in-pots need a bit of water once or twice a week. So the clients actually need to water the plants within that week. 6) Tulips require sunlight but not full sun. This is a bit more interesting in terms of programming our software and using the sensors.

In the experiment, one plant will be placed in a regular pot and will serve as a control. The other plant will be placed in our smart pot. Both plants will then be placed in similar environments, with the same temperature and amount of light, but in different locations (as to not trigger care for the control plant by association with the smart plant). Then the caretakers will introduce the people with DS to the plants and the smart pot and tell them that they have to care for these plants during that week. The caretakers also mention that one plant is a magical talking plant and that it can communicate if it needs something so that the clients will not be scared or too confused.

We know that one week is a very short time span and that a sample size of just 2 plants is small but we have to work with what we have. After the test period, we will assess the health of both plants to see if one is in better health than the other, suggesting the smart plant influenced the wellbeing of the plant. Due to the situation with Covid-19 we are not allowed to enter the care-houses in person. And due to the mental vulnerability of the clients, their privacy, and the fact that we are strangers to them, we are not allowed to set up a webcam feed to more scientifically measure some parameters like: time spent with the plant. Therefore we will gather results by questioning the caretakers (and the clients indirectly). The results from the two parallel tests will be combined while paying attention to any possibly interesting similarities and differences. From these combined results we will be able to judge whether our product achieved the goals we set for it, and what still needs to be improved.

Hypothesis

We expected that we will achieve our main goal of helping people with Down syndrome to have more ways to spend their time in a joyful manner, that is why we decided on this design. We are fairly confident we will reach this prioritized goal when the design experiences no malfunctions during the testing period. This concretely means that the caretakers will rate the “time spend” and “enjoyment” in the questionnaire higher for our smart pot than for the control plant.

Our second goal is to take some workload from the caretakers. For this, we expected a negative result but that is due to an unresolvable flaw in the design of the experiment. We hypothesize that the installation process adds extra workload, and so does the becoming accustomed to using the product. We expect that the clients will need some time and guidance from the caretakers when using the smart pot for the first few times. However, we do expect the workload to drop after the product has been fully integrated. Therefore we will also ask the caretakers if they foresee a reduction in workload if the smart pot were to be used longer than a week, say a month. For this, we do expect a positive answer.

Our third goal is to help the client become more independent and caring. We expect that these characteristics will be hard to measure with such a small sample size and test time. But we might be wrong. It could also be the same that some clients quickly develop a caring fondness for FLEUR. This again will have to be rated by the caretakers. We expected to measure some degree of increased independence. An increase in independence is defined as a report by the caretaker that the clients get activated by our system to perform a task that they had forgotten in the control plant.

Our final goal was to improve the health of the tulip. For this, we expect an inconclusive result. We think that there will be no significant change between the control plant and the smart pot in one week, even if the control plant gets no care at all. On the other hand, it could also be the case that our plant model is not ideal or if the instructions aren't followed carefully enough by the client. Which may lead to drowning the smart pot tulip whilst the control plant lives.

Real-life testing (executing the experiment)

To see whether the prototype fits the user requirements and to gain direct feedback on the system, a test under the target audience was necessary. Therefore we decided to place our two prototypes in two different care houses and ask the caretakers how our prototype affected the mentally disabled.

Below are the manual of Fleur and the questionaire

Handleiding

.........

Questionnaire after prototype use // feedback na de tests

The caretakers that we are in contact with prefer a questionnaire in Dutch so that is why this section is written in Dutch. It is important to keep the questionnaire short with only the most vital questions. The caretaker are voluntary helping us by spending their time on using our product and answer our questions. Be do not want to burden them or scare them off. Secondly, we think that it would be better to have few complete and carefully answered vital questions instead of 30 questions that are answered minimally.

Beste …, Nogmaals bedankt voor uw medewerking. Afgelopen week hebben u en uw cliënten onze slimme pot getest. Hieronder bevindt zich een korte vragenlijst met 8 stellingen over jullie ervaring met de slimme pot. Het invullen zal ongeveer XX minuten duren. Wij zullen deze resultaten alleen gebruiken om te beoordelen of ons prototype heeft voldaan aan vooraf vastgestelde doelen, en wat er bij een volgende uitvoering eventueel verbetert kan worden. Enkel wij als project groepje en onze supervisors zullen de antwoorden lezen en we zijn niet geïnteresseerd in privé gegevens zoals namen. Bij elke stelling dient u één antwoord wat van toepassing is te omcirkelen. Daarnaast is er open ruimte om uw menig te geven of uw antwoordt toe te lichten. Alle feedback is welkom, ook kritische uiteraard. We hebben liever te veel dan te weinig informatie dus wees niet terughoudend.

Stelling 1)

De installatie van de slimme pot was een prettige procedure.

Sterk oneens // Oneens // Neutraal // Eens // Sterk eens Open ruimte voor feedback over de installatie procedure)

Stelling 2)

Mijn cliënten hebben meer tijd besteed met de slimme pot dan met de controle tulp.