Talk: Maria Jose Molina-Contreras - How to build an intelligent “indoor garden”

Presented by: Maria Jose Molina-Contreras, phD Most people around the world are getting more and more interested in living a long and healthy life nowadays. And many studies have proven that growing house plants, as long as being a trend, improves health. The truth is, we are so busy with work, and even when we get home, that we do not have enough time to properly water our plants when they need it. In this talk, you are going to learn how to build a functional and beginner friendly system to keep your plants alive using different sensors, microcontrollers and CircuitPython. This system is going to water your plants based on their necessities and, step by step, you are going to add components and functionalities to the system; for instance, you will give your plants “a voice” to inform you about their deficiencies. Moreover, in this project, you will learn how to create a Web application with Flask, how to set up a Raspberry Pi as a local server and how to use a cloud IoT service for Data Analysis. Finally, you will see how Circuitpython can play an amazing role in these kind of situations, by helping plants to survive longer, and by making our responsibility lighter. This will also help you to understand that it is an excellent choice to start programming hardware and connected devices for everyone!