Four year 8 students from Northcross Intermediate collaborated, researched, and worked across the curriculum to design and create a plant-monitoring, self-watering system for keeping the school's indoor plants healthy.
A self-watering plant system
Transcript
[Florence]
Look at this bit.
[Sohan]
It’s very dry. It’s the same thing for house plants. Put it in the sun? – dies.
[Florence]
Well, live and learn.
[Hayley Barrowcliffe]
Florence and Sohan wanted to improve the soil in the plants here, in our garden.
[Sohan]
The failure of one plant needs to success for another.
[Florence]
Well that’s true.
[Hayley]
We wanted to bring the plants inside our tech base, and then they worked out, ‘Well, hang on, then they’ll dry out over the weekends or, moreso, in the holidays.”
[Sohan]
Florence and I, first I would … two nails, connected to a Micro Bit. So then we put it in the soil to test if it had water or not.
[Marc Rowlinson]
Sohan was quite interested in the electronics side of things. And then Florence soon realised, “Eventually we’re going to need to some practical application to house this somewhere.” And so she started to look at designing components of the physical structure.
[Hayley]
Oh, so those are the little separators, aren’t they?”
[Florence]
Yeah. This is connected to the Arduino, and this is connected to the solar panel.
We had to make sure that it was neat, cos there were so many wires. And all the little things, that if they’re not in the right place, they won’t work.
[Marc]
And then, all of a sudden, Aharon and Samuel started talking to Florence and Sohan.
[Samuel]
Our project was also based on plants, and we thought that if we collab together, then it would have been better for us both.
[Florence]
When Samuel and Aharon joined, they all had really good, bright ideas, but they couldn’t combine them – which was where I came in.
What do you think, Aharon?
[Aharon]
It’s much clearer. It’s easier to understand what’s happening.
She really managed us a lot.
[Sohan]
She has that feel for, like, where to put stuff, how to organise our time.
[Florence]
I would just tell them, “Tell me your ideas and I’ll find a way to combine them.”
Here you can see that it’s all really well connected, and it’s all really clear what goes where.
[Marc]
They had to break down all the parts of the project to be able to ask deeper questions that’d give them the more specific answers that they required during that process.
[Florence]
You have to do this first, then that, then that. You can’t just rush it all in.
[Sohan]
Coding is a hard process, really, it just takes time.
[Hayley]
They had to keep researching and keep trying and had to go to so many different curriculum areas.
[Aharon]
When I first came into the science I thought I couldn’t do it, I thought it was just too difficult. But I learnt that if you just push hard enough, you can make it.
[Samuel]
I learnt that I could be patient and get along with others.
[Aharon]
I’ve never really worked with other people before. So it was like a big experience to learn that you need patience with people.
[Florence]
That’s good.
[Sohan]
Thank you.
[Marc]
When they achieved something, that was enough just to ignite them, to go, “I want to go a step further.”
[Aharon]
We just kept failing a lot. But when we got it right, it felt accomplished. That’s why we kept coming back.
[Marc]
When they’re passionate, there’s not often a need to watch over them like a hawk.
[Sohan]
The teachers came in when we needed them most, but not always, cos it was our project. If the teachers would tell us everything, there wouldn’t be much involvement of us doing it, it’d just be them.
[Florence]
So when the moisture signal sends a signal to the Arduino, it takes water from this bottle back into the pump, and then it goes all the way back into the plant when it’s dry.
[Aharon]
Beautiful!
[Florence]
Yeah, it turned out really good.