Team:Newcastle/Software/NH1
Newcastle Hydroponics
Code
NH-1
Software
Increasing the adaptability of plant growth infrastructure within the University and, in fact, with traditional growth equipment, would be highly advantageous as it would aid set-up and availability of facilities. We designed the NH-1 to combat this. The NH-1 is controlled entirely by an Arduino micro-controller. The Arduino offers a low-cost, easy-to-use solution to control and adapt the function of the LEDs. The Arduino also offers an open-source electronic prototyping platform and offers plenty of opportunities for further development of the NH-1, in terms of user interface and interaction. All the code and the IDE are freely available online and the UNO board can be purchased online from Arduino for less than £20. The Arduino language is based on C/C++, therefore, it is incredibly easy to become familiar with, especially with previous experience of C/C++, however, if not there is a wealth of resources online that can help with this. We have designed a guide to using the IDE and included some examples of the capabilities of the NH-1. Some of the features that you can incorporate include:
- Solid colours across the system.
- Cyclically varying colours (rainbow) in the system.
- Linear gradients of colours across the system.
- Colours can be defined by RGB, HSV values or HTML standard.
- Brightness can be varied, for example to simulate a day/night cycle or a gradual sunrise/sunset.
There are many more possible features as the capabilities of NH-1 are incredibly varied. This makes it the ideal system for plant-based experimentation, with the added bonus that the system is completely contained and portable. The end result is a highly adaptable, semi-autonomous system that is simple to code and even easier to run.
References & Attributions
Attributions: Umar Farooq, Luke Waller