Team:Newcastle/Code
NH-1
Software
Adaptability was a major issue with the existing plant growth infrastructure within the University and, in fact, with many traditional growth 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++ so it is incredibly easy to become familiar with, especially if you already have experience with C/C++ but 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
The list goes on as the possibilities with the 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.