Team:BIOSINT Mexico/Garden

Mobile Garden

Description

One of the main questions we had to solve when designing our project was, how could we adapt this system in a wild environment without affecting our results and the place? And the answer to that question was to design a dismountable garden for which we consulted the ESIABA (escuela de ingenieria en alimentos, biotecnologia y agonomia) department in our school which helped us to design and adapt this system.

In order to have a place where the plants could be tested in a controlled environment, we designed an easy to assemble garden which can be placed in different areas contaminated by mercury.

The main goal of doing this is to avoid any kind of contamination or interference from the outside, thus the plants would growth relatively safe and results obtained from the experiment would be fairly accurate.

The garden is composed by four essential components which are the base, the pillars, the dismountable roof and the irrigation system. Each component can be easily adjusted to different type of areas and soils. Also the materials used for its design are cheap and easy to recycle, for the base we proposed to use three types of materials which are wood polycarbonate and acrylic plates. The pillars are made of wood or pvc tube, both are easy to work with, the dismountable roof can be made out of polycarbonate or acrylic (recommended material due to its properties) and the irrigation system is made from plastic hose which is easy to manipulate and also is stable without much support.

As our project uses a red-light switch to activate and deactivate the system, so we also designed a light controlled system based on leds, which are attached to the dismountable roof. As the garden will not always be near to a source of electric energy we added a solar panel in order to get energy for the leds to work when needed. Nails if working with wood or silicon if working with polycarbonate or acrylic, also 8 hinges.

The structure is small and easy to assemble, the base has 70cm length and 15 cm high, the pillars have 80 cm high and one should be placed in every corner of the base. The roof has the same proportions as the base but also it includes the lateral panels where the leds are placed and the proportion of each side is 70 cm length and 60 cm high.

Here is the procedure to follow in order to create and install one of this simple gardens in a determined area.

1.-Cut four equal plates of the material chosen for the base, it should be 70 cm width and 15 cm height.

2.-For the roof cut one square 70cm x 70cm, and for the lateral panels cut four equal rectangles 70 cm width and 60 cm height. Also cut 16 pieces 2cm x 2cm each one.

3.-Cut four pillars 1 meter long each one and 1.5-2 cm diameter.

4.-For the leds panel, connect all the leds together via parallel, is recommendable to use liquid silicone to paste the leds properly, and the using a resistance which can be a phone charger connect the cable if you want to use it on normal current, if not connect the cables with the solar panel.

5.-For the roof´s main plate(70x70) paste in each corner forming a square four of the little pieces(2x2), which will form the main assemble region for the pillars and the roof. Using any kind of glue paste and adapt a little solar panel in the top side. Screw two hinges per side and attach the other four panels (70x60).

6.-Make four holes 20 cm deep in the soil and place one pillar per hole, after placing fill each hole. Place the base plates horizontally around the square formed by the pillar and paste every corner with silicone or nails depending the material you are working with.

7.-Once all steps are done the roof can be placed and removed any time.

8.-If the garden will not be placed in a contaminated are it can be done portable (as showed in the image), just by adding an extra panel (70x70) under the base with little holes 1-0.5 cm diameter in order to avoid water accumulation.