SmartSoil
Education, with Pueblo Science
SmartSoil is a mobile app and sensor kit that teaches students how to build a smart plant-watering system. They wire an ESP8266 board to a soil probe, read it on a phone, and work through lessons on IoT, data visualisation and machine learning.
- For
- Teachers and students in the Philippines
- With
- Pueblo Science
- Hardware
- ESP8266 board, soil moisture probe and DHT11 sensor
- Lessons
- 21 steps, 15 to 25 minutes
The problem
Students and growers lack accessible tools to learn IoT and to monitor the soil and climate signals that drive plant health.What we built
A low-cost sensor kit, a mobile app that reads it and charts the trends, 21 guided lesson steps, machine learning activities, and a teachers' guide with a climate dataset for the Philippines.About the project
It was built for teachers and students in the Philippines, with Pueblo Science, and comes with a guide site for teachers.
What it does
What SmartSoil does today, feature by feature.
A kit students wire themselves
An ESP8266 board with a soil moisture probe and a temperature and humidity sensor.
Live readings on a phone
The app reads the board over the board's own WiFi network and shows moisture, temperature and humidity with trend charts.
Guided lessons
Twenty-one steps cover the hardware, the wiring, data visualisation and machine learning.
Machine learning activities
Students choose which features a model should use and try a watering decision tool.
Works before the kits arrive
A demo mode simulates readings, so a class can start without hardware.
A guide for teachers
A companion site holds the teaching guide, install instructions, a Philippines climate dataset and a Python notebook.
How it was built
The stages the project went through, in order.
- 1
Design the sensor kit
Choose low-cost parts a class can assemble.
- 2
Define how the board talks
Give the board simple web addresses that return its readings.
- 3
Build the app and dashboard
Read the board from a phone and chart the trends.
- 4
Write the lessons and the guide
Turn the build into classroom material for students and teachers.
How it fits in
What it connects to, who can use it and where it runs.
- Connection
- The phone talks to the board directly over the board's own WiFi network. No internet connection is needed.
- Data
- There is no server or database. Settings stay on the phone.
- Phones
- An app for iOS and Android.
Last updated
Sponsored by Novo Nordisk
