Main brain of the greenhouse automation system at Quinsigamond Community College. MotherShip's task is to collect data from each of the nodes, format it into a JSON, and send it to a server for storage and analytics.

Imagine a world where crops are grown without the expensive, laborious care and manpower that limits food production around the world. The goal of this project is to improve the productivity of a greenhouse through the implementation of custom and experimental automation technology. A piece of experimental technology that will be tested is an invention that functions exclusively on solar energy. This mechanism extracts carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and pumps the gas into the greenhouse to aid plant growth and reduce carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. The fundamental automation of caretaking tasks will be accomplished in three phases. The first phase will be the installation of microcontrollers at key locations throughout the greenhouse. The microcontrollers, designated as nodes, will have novel programs managed via Bluetooth by a single-board computer. This computer will act as the brain of the system and will be officially denominated as “Mothership.” Phase two of this project will be to install an abundance of sensors to collect data for the prioritization of the automation processes. Mothership will use innovative techniques to gather data for further analyses and to be displayed on a public website. Finally, phase three will be to automate key processes in order to optimize the production and productivity of the greenhouse. This optimization will include the installation of mechanical apparatuses to automate systems of heating, lighting, and watering. Ultimately, this project will serve to foster interdisciplinary research on the college campus and paint a picture of a brighter future for the world.

• Maven - Dependency Management
• Arduino - Microcontroller Platform

• Brendan Russell - TheRussellMuscle

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE.md file for details

• Thanks to Thomas Rokicki - CraftingGamerTom for coding the server, website, and serverside data analytics which made this project possible.
• Thanks to Quinsigamond Community College, Phi Theta Kappa, Bonnie Coleman, and the rest of the greenhouse team for giving me a greenhouse, hardware, and funding to make this project possible.
• Thanks to my advisor, Professor Hao Loi, for giving me the opportinity to present my findings at the UMass Undergraduate Research Confrence.
• Thanks to Michelle Loven, for helping me write my abstract, create hardware, and for giving me support throughout this project's development.