MAGI - Monitoring Assistant for Gardening Innovation

Citizen science initiative for plant care and data generation to build a species and cares database for those plants that will best adapt to the climatic conditions of the region.

The problem is the lack of awareness and low-cost smart devices to favor the care and adaptation of plants to the effects of climate change through data generation and promoting the engagement of the public with the development of smart gardening technologies. 

Actually, because of the high levels of CO₂, the global photosynthesis of plants has increased by 17%, which boosts their growth. This is relevant because plants absorb 30% of CO₂ emissions, but their absorption capacity depends, to some extent, on how much water and how much nitrogen is available. 

This becomes worrisome in the context of our community, since Guanajuato is the second state across Mexico with the greatest problem of water stress. In addition, about 60% of the state is in drought and, in León, Guanajuato, the effects of this desertification can be seen up to 1.8 meters underground, so the soil has a limited retention capacity and almost zero absorption response and moisture generation. 

Thus, the vegetation that grows in these areas lacks the provision of the necessary environmental services for its optimal development, which causes physical plant stress, the stress imposed by the physical environment such as drought, salinity (toxicity), temperatures, winds, and soil compaction. In fact, due to this stress, the oxygen production in the city is about -6.34 thousand tons per year, affecting 57.2% of the population of the city (0.7 million people), ultimately contributing to poor air quality in the city, which can even cause health problems to the citizens.

MAGI is a citizen science initiative aimed towards the generation of open data networks for plant care and climate change adaptation in León, Guanajuato, Mexico. 

On one hand, MAGI consists of the development of an Internet of Things monitoring assistant for gardening that includes humidity, light, temperature, nutrient and moisture sensors and an intelligent irrigation system connected to digital data channels and an app. 

Besides, rather than just being a commercial product, MAGI is a socially driven multi-level participation initiative, since through public workshops climate education is delivered, environmental needs are continuously being mapped across the city in a collective way and a simpler and DIY MAGI version is made accessible to the public in order for more people to generate data for the system. 

Thus, using MAGI citizens and cities generate their own data in order to create metrics, insights and map plant care and growth collaboratively based on a catalog of plant species that will better grow with the changing climate conditions according to research conducted by the local environmental agency. 

In this way, with MAGI we can raise awareness so that people reflect on the environmental data mapped and easily access detailed care information of each type of plant though an app.

The MAGI device consists of two main parts:

• Sensor Module- it is a small sealed box that contains the sensors and the cloud-connected microcontroller. The sensor module is in contact with the plant(s) in order to gather the data.

• Intelligent water container- it’s the water container that has the irrigation system and also stores liquid nutrients.

As a citizen science initiative, the project has the potential to impact mainly children and youth (between 10–20 years old) who don’t have that close access to green technology projects, since it is a topic not addressed by the Environmental Education Plan for Schools of the State of Guanajuato. Also, the project can positively impact adults who are interested in gardening or concerned about the environment. In this sense, we are working to empower citizens to use technology for the benefit of their city and the environment regardless of whether they have the income to purchase their own smart gardening device, since they will be able to access the MAGI technology, learn and even, in the future, feel empowered to make their own DIY monitoring devices. 

In this way, MAGI will let us raise awareness of the local impact of climate change on the health of plants and people, as well as make them participate in the mapping of environmental problems and needs in the city. 

Furthermore, through the workshops they will gain practical experience on the use and development of technologies for data generation that will help the community build a directory of plants and their cares that will ultimately be used by even more people in the community and become a product for sale dedicated to people committed to the environment who have little experience in caring for plants or who do not have a lot of time to care for them but want to contribute to climate action from their homes.

Our team consists of a group of business, mechatronics and industrial engineering students that want to make technical knowledge accessible to the public, in particular to inspire young people to use technology to develop green solutions for our city.

As engineering university students, we understand that sometimes scientific and technological development is made distant from society and seen as difficult disciplines where not everyone can participate, but through our work and experience we seek to demystify science and make it a collective work that not only harms the environment but also can help society understand and better act on behalf plants and the environment.

We have been able to work alongside various companies and organizations either related with technology or climate action, such as OMRON Robotics, the Technovation Challenge and CIATEC (the state’s advanced research center). These experiences have helped us in acquiring abilities like project management, teamwork and mentoring.

On the technical side, studying engineering provides us with the necessary knowledge on electrical circuit design and its implementation, manufacturing processes, programming skills and statistical analysis. We have also individually been certificated in SCRUM, Google Cloud Foundations Academy and have participated in climate-related events such as the regional LCOY (Local Conference of Youth on Climate Change) and the NYC Climate Week.

The steps we have followed to understand the users and the problem include, on the one hand, interviews and meetings with the former director of the environmental department in León, who is a biologist and owner of a nursery, as well as researchers who work in materials labs and projects of science outreach within the Optics Research Center of the city. In this sense, we were able to understand the importance of not only designing a product for sale that helps generate data for environmental mapping and care insights using technologies such as IoT, but also designing an entire learning and citizen participation experience around the project.

That is why qualitative surveys were carried out to find out what worries local youth in terms of climate change, with air quality and lack of awareness being their main concerns. Then, a QFD (Quality Function Deployment) was made from online surveys to find out what adults and young people would look for in a monitoring device aimed to help them take care of their plants automatically. In this way, we related these characteristics with technical requirements that were taken into account in the development and design of device technology and, consequently, the product that, at a later stage, would be put on sale.

Number of participants: 243

The solution, more than a commercial monitoring tool that allows sensing, mapping and tracking the optimal care conditions for a variety of plants in the region seeks to build an affordable and robust system as well as open data networks based on the vegetable palette built by the city's environmental department (a catalog of plant species that will best adapt to the projections of the future climate conditions of the region due to climate change). 

In this way, our solution also promotes the digitization of the vegetable palette and the active participation of society in its construction and continuous improvement. 

Thus, MAGI is a citizen science initiative where technological training is incorporated and a continuous mapping of city’s the issues is carried out promoting dialogue and multilevel participation to generate a social impact and the engagement of users in the design of a low-cost device for home use based on versatility, ease and simplicity, looking forward to also serve as an impulse to educate on green technologies and inspire more citizens to design this kind of products or projects for the construction of an environmentally responsible, intelligent city prepared to address the challenges arising from climate change.

[Figure provided by León Environmental Agency]

One of the ways we can impact people's lives is through citizen science workshops. As the product hasn’t been mass-produced, we first need to generate more data by conducting tests and providing the DIY version to people. We have designed these workshops, so people receive from us the materials needed to mimic the product and information about the problem we aim to solve. These workshops would also be imparted online. 

Our focus is to develop our product to the point it can be physically tested and easily built by other people, so we can start gathering mass amounts of data for further research. 

The main impact goal we have is to reach at least 500 people in the community with the workshops, raise awareness to around 75% of the people who participate in this stage of the project, as well as to demystify science and achieve that least 50% of the participants feel more confident in acquiring or building solutions based on green technology. This will be measured with surveys at the start and end of each program, so we can track how people’s opinions have changed by participating in the project.

In the workshops, we will provide both information on the issue we want to solve, and materials, so the participants know how our product will work. We will also collect some information, such as their opinion of the climate change, the water crisis, plant care, and some data about where they live and what they think is the main issue in their zone. With this information, we’ll be able to see what each individual’s needs are and how we can further impact their lives.

The core technology that powers our IoT solution is based on the following branches: sensors, actuators, microcontrollers, data analytics and mobile development. It’s all existing technology, and the application of these components has helped us to develop our solution.

The sensors we are using include photoresistors, capacitive soil humidity (Hygrometer) sensor, DHT11 (temperature and relative humidity sensor) and metal oxide sensors. 

The sensors are in contact with the plant and its environment, so that all the information gathered by the sensors is processed on the edge. The microcontroller is capable of accessing a cloud database that will list the type of plant, its watering and additional information of the cares it needs, Also, the system is capable of changing the amount of water it provides depending on this information. 

The use of microcontrollers such as a NodeMCU ESP32 makes the product affordable and easy to code on C++ language, allowing us to send the information to an IoT data analytics platform service (Thingspeak) in order to analyze the data. 

After analyzing the data, it makes the microcontroller send a signal to the actuators: LED matrix and water pump. The LED matrix will help the user to visualize in a graph the humidity level in the soil, and the water pump will send the water in order to irrigate the plant.

This information will also be sent to a database that will contain all the collected data for further analysis using python libraries to build AI and ML models in order to improve the irrigation system.

With our face-to-face workshops we plan to impact on 250 people approximately. This will be accomplished by having several  groups of people participating. 

We also plan to impact 100 people by uploading information about our project on a web page, so people can download this content and learn about it. 

We can make virtual workshops as well, so we reach a bigger sector of the population. With these online courses we plan to serve 200 people. 

Thus, in total, during the next year we plan to serve 550 people across Guanajuato and Mexico with the virtual and in-person workshops.

The main barrier we will face is the marketing aspect and catching the people’s attention to participate in the workshops, since the workshop will require at lest 2 hours in order for participants to complete the curriculum. 

In the financial aspect, we might face some problems if we would like to replicate more advanced prototypes in order to do the initial tests, as well as if we require additional units than the ones we currently have for the workshops.

Also, technical and design difficulties always appear during prototyping, that we might need to solve and improve. The selection of components to be used is fundamental for the commercial product due to the versatility and complexity of the assembly of the prototype which means that ergonomics and efficiency will have to be balanced and this will imply failures as well as changes in the design. 

Finally, mass data management will be a challenge, since we will need to pay for Google Cloud storage and services usage in order to analyze the data and create robust models. Also, API knowledge will be needed to communicate the app and the cloud.

We are part of the Tecnológico de Monterrey student community, which gives us access to certain tools for entrepreneurship. One of the institutes we get access to is the Eugenio Garza Lagüera Institute of Entrepreneurship where we can get aid in aspects, such as financial management and in business in general. 

We have contacted people from the Local Environmental Agency and the Youth Municipal institute in order to get mentorship and start planning next workshops on their facilities. Also, we have reached an investigator from the Optics Research Center (CIO), so we can join a research program and get funding for our project.

We want to develop our project to make it a fully commercial product that can be sold to the public. At the same time, we want to raise awareness of the water issues in our city and the importance of taking care of it. The final product will be a device capable of smart irrigation via collecting data about the soil and the air, so it results efficiently of watering plants with as little loss of water as possible according to the climate conditions and the huge database we plan to build. 

First, we need to get to that point, so our current model will be focused on gathering information about our community and their people. We will also spread information about the problem we want to solve and the DIY device. This will be accomplished through workshops, either face-to-face or online. In these workshops, we will teach about sustainability and resource management.

The workshops will be aimed towards the public, and may or may not have an entrance fee, depending on if we are allied with another organization, or any governmental office. We can also give these courses at schools and cultural spaces such as museums or libraries; this way our product can also have an impact on young people and children. Advertisement for these workshops can be done via partnership with an organization or with retail nurseries, so they promote our courses.  

People would be willing to participate in our solution, since through our research and approach with users, we found out that having plants at home has increased substantially. At the same time, some governments, including the one in our city, donate plants of all sorts to the retail nursery, while only asking people to take care of them. Our product will be able to support this program, helping people take care of their plants without checking on them so frequently and providing them with insights on their growth. 

Finally, the market of smart gardening is estimated to reach a value of 243.3 million USD by 2030, so we strongly believe our product will be successful in this market, while at the same time may help other people manage water as a resource.

In this stage of the project our fund will come mainly from research grants and partnerships with the local governmental agencies (for youth and the environment) in order to sponsor the workshops and materials. 

Based on the success our workshops have, we could sell them to other private organizations, so they impart them while still promoting our product. We can also seek more governmental help. There are programs with the secretary of innovation in our city we could apply to get financial help. We could also partner with retail nurseries in this stage, so we use their plants to test our system while they advertise the workshops. After this stage, we hope to transform our project into a product. When this occurs, we will be able to obtain income through selling it in nurseries and through e-commerce platforms such as Shopify.