Smart Greenhouse
I was the sole designer of this Smart Greenhouse, which was funded by a $2-million continuation grant from the National Science Foundation. This grant supports the Boston College Lynch School of Education’s Hydroponics Education initiative to engage Massachusetts urban public school students in the science and enterprise of hydroponic gardening. The project involved 840 public middle and high school students in Boston, Springfield, and Waltham schools who will learn how to grow ethnically familiar produce without soil with programming, and to sell those products at local farmers’ markets.
User Research
This project was ongoing during the Covid-19 Pandemic. In order to conduct user research and identify key pain points for our users, I had to understand the assembly process of the first iteration of the smart greenhouse. The image to the left is a screen capture of myself building the first version of the greenhouse.
Concept Sketches
These concept sketches were made with ink on paper. I identified key elements that seemed important to the greenhouse users and made designs centered around those elements. A sturdy handle, flat bottoms, slanted tops, and lids are all in the concept sketches displayed to the left. It was important to identify key elements for designing a user-friendly smart greenhouse.
Brainstorming
Brainstorming sessions where I would design ideations and jot them down on post its were an important part of the design process, as this mechanism would allow me to immediately doodle concepts that came to mind. I organized the ideas based on category in the image to the right.
Planning
These design plans prioritized a convenient and seamless assembly and reassembly process. The students were expected to move their projects around their classrooms constantly, which is why handles and a sturdy grip was an important part of this design. I focused on making the project more simple to understand by compartmentalizing the wires, facilitating transport through assembly and handle inclusions, and reducing packaging through the simplification of component pieces.
Finalized Drawing and Stages
This is my final drawing of the proposed greenhouse design. Shortly after, we began to 3D print and laser cut the components of the greenhouse so that we could test the assembly process and conduct stress testing.
3D Printing
The image to the left was taken during the initial printing process of the first 1/4th scale greenhouse prototype using the PRUSA printer. The STL files were extracted from Fusion then opened in PrusaSlicer and converted to gcode. Greenhouses are now in mass production stage.
