Project Description and Motivation:
Storm runoff adversely affects water quality; surface pollution, trash, and topsoil run into bodies of water. As a result, submerged aquatic wildlife such as grasses, oysters, fish, and crabs are killed. Runoff has become a problem in urban and suburban areas as well due to impermeable pavement and the development of wetland areas. Impermeable pavement makes flash floods from torrential rains worse, and houses become damaged by flooded basements.
One possible solution to this problem, at least on an individual house scale, is the use of rain barrels. These devices can be used to delay the flow of water. They collect rainwater from roof downspouts and store it. This stored water can then be used to water gardens and plants through the hose, located at the bottom of the barrel. For our Robots and Sensor final project, my teammates and I created a supplementary device that turns ordinary rain barrels into Smart Rain Barrels by automating the process by which the rain barrels stores and releases water. I decided to take this final project one step further and integrated it with my Google Home.
Most Challenging Part of this Project:
Getting the ESP8266 to work with the Arduino Uno was a nightmare! The ESP8266 was not connecting to the WiFi at first and then it was not connecting with the server. Thankfully, someone open-sourced their code with the ESP8266 and I managed to get mine working follow their procedure. In addition, Google has used IFTTT integration tool, which at first was challenging but after 2015 became a breeze to create new applications.
