Garden Bot

The Garden Bot was a project sprung on the Class of 2025 by one of the school's Science Teachers
who had wanted an automated system for taking care of plants. It was the first Shop project we had had,
and we knew almost nothing, being Sophomores.

The end goal of the project was to have an automated planter that shines light, waters, and cools plants.
It was to be controlled by a Raspberry Pi, 3 Arduinos, and Relays. Each student was assigned to their specific
task, whether that be Software, where I (Ionic) was, Hadware, Documentation, or the Project Manager. Communication
and Co-operation was one of the most difficult parts of the project, espesially since the software people were constantly
nudged by the teacher to write code for hardware that isn't in place yet. Other Co-Operation issues stemmed us being in 10th
grade and nobody knowing what was going on.

After some planning, and finally somewhat sorting things out, progress started being made. Acrylic side panelling was being cut,
lights were being mounted, with a lightbox to coincide with it, pumps and sensors were being tested, and Documentation was being taken.
Pretty much everything was going smoothly except code. It had gotten to a point where almost everything needed to be rewired to accomodate
the code, as apparently changing the code instead seems too stupid to do. I wrote basically none of the code, and instead helped with the hardware.

The Raspberry Pi had a JavaScript script written on it, which was:
- Controlled by a local webserver
- Able to control the state of the relays on the board
- Control the Arduinos
- Monitor the first shelf via a Camera

The last part of the project was mounting the fans and writing their code. The fans were the wrong fans, and could not be coded
the way we were asked to. A workaround was attempted to be made, and the project was "finished."

A year later, we have to bring the machine back for repairs. The Arduino's needed to be remounted, along with the Raspberry Pi.
The Camera for the machine was simply just stolen, and the fans simply did not work. The only working aspects of the machine were
the lights, and the local webserver. I was tasked with the webserver, and someone else was tasked with fixing up the hardware.
A 3D model had to be made in order for the new fans, 12V PC fans, to be mounted. While the model was being modeled, I was removing
code made for the Camera, and cleaning up the site. Even a year later, nobody likes working on this machine.