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PrecipitatePause: An Automated Rain-Driven Water C

An easily installable device that is placed on people’s sprinklers that has the ability to save 400 billion gallons of water each year.

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We want to create a device that has the ability to save water at a large scale as we move to a more water scarce world.
Wanted to create a device that is:
- small and discrete
- durable enough to be outside for years
- solves a problem commonly overlooked
- low cost and simple to use
- can be mass produced

Our device will be able to predict if it is going to rain on the day the person’s sprinkler system is supposed to turn on. If it predicts that there is going to be rain it will turn a latch blocking the water sprocket and not allowing water to reach the sprinkler system. This idea saves water by not allowing the same lawn to be watered twice instead allowing the rain to do the watering on certain days instead.

We live in the western part of America which means that the idea of water conservation is in the forefront of our mind due to the drought going on right now.

We realized that many water conservation methods aren’t really scalable and easy to implement.

We wanted an idea that was:

  • Simple to understand
  • Was cheap to make
  • Could be implemented by anyone

We figured we'd look to nature for some help, and try to come up with a design that keeps us from stepping on Mother Nature's toes with things she's already got covered.

  • Final Design:

    Tyler Carmel07/02/2023 at 23:19 0 comments

    The whole design is put together by 3D printing parts. There is a long plastic piece on the front of the shut off valve that allows the box to clip onto. The box clips on that piece then extends over the shut off valve. With the arduino and servo being neatly tucked in the box the design is simple and effective.

  • Stop Water Flow:

    Tyler Carmel07/02/2023 at 23:19 0 comments

    We decided that we would use a shut off valve that would be turned to turn off the water. 

    ``Picture of shut off valve``

    Then put a servo with a star shape that could turn the shut off valve handle 0 to 80 degrees.

    ‘’Picture of servo on shut off valve’’

    The user would put in where they live, what time their sprinkler turns on, and how long it stays on. 

    This data would be processed by python and output yes if there was rain or no if there wasn’t. 

    Then the C++ code that was already on the arduino would receive what the python had said, if it was a yes then it would tell the servo to turn 80 degrees and lock for however long the user inputted. Once that cycle was done the python code would once again check the weather and say an output to the arduino accordingly.

    We make the set up for the user because the whole device can just be screwed on the spigot on one side then the other side will just be the hose that is connected to the person’s sprinkler system. Then they just have to open up our website then fill in 3 boxes, where they live, what time their sprinkler turns on, and how long it stays on.

  • Weather Data:

    Tyler Carmel07/02/2023 at 23:18 0 comments

    We used a website called OpenWeatherMap which had an API that when we input the city would output if there was going to be rain on that day.

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