Our school has a corn garden. Encik, our school gardener, looks after the whole compound. He trims the flowers, cuts the grass, tidies the school grounds, and used to water the corn himself. With so many jobs, the corn sometimes gets less water than it needs, and in Miri's afternoon heat the leaves wilt in a day or two.
We just want to help Encik, so the corn still gets water even when he is busy. Our system is built for the next planting season.
From the cornfield to the working prototype, our whole IDEAL journey in five minutes.
Five stages, from a real problem to a working prototype.
We saw the corn wilting and interviewed Encik in Malay about his watering routine.
Empati + Mendefinisi masalahWe turned it into one question: "Can solar power water the corn by itself?"
Mendefinisi masalahWe compared four ideas (timer, battery, solar + sensor, rainwater) and chose solar + sensor.
Menjana ideaWe built v1 (a cup model), then v2 with a bamboo tower, a recycled container, a sprinkler and an Arduino, and wrote the code over five versions.
PrototaipWe tested and fixed real problems: a backwards relay, sensor jitter, a mis-connected tube, and weak-sunlight stalls. After that, v2 worked.
Uji lariSwipe through how our one prototype grew, from version 1 to version 2.
The brain checks the soil. When it is dry, the pump runs on free solar power. When it is wet enough, it stops.
💡 Why solar in the morning? Corn is best watered from 6 to 10am, exactly when the solar panel makes power. So the pump runs straight off the sun, which matches good farming practice. A small battery is only a backup so the pump can still run without strong sun, for example indoors.
Drag the slider to change how dry the soil is. Watch the pump turn on and off using the exact thresholds from our real Arduino code.
3 STEM and 3 non-STEM, all from the Tahun 5/6 SJK curriculum.
Sumber tenaga elektrik & penjimatan elektrik; kemahiran proses sains.
Tenaga boleh baharu, pengaturcaraan & mikropengawal (Arduino), pertanian bandar.
Wang & kos, ukuran panjang tiub, perwakilan data (carta bar).
Bersoal jawab: temu bual dengan Encik dalam Bahasa Melayu.
Speaking and writing: this presentation, video, and notes.
Prihatin terhadap keperluan komuniti, bertanggungjawab, kerjasama.
These are typical readings from our tests, and how we chose our thresholds. Higher number = drier soil.
⚙️ Thresholds: pump turns ON above 600 (dry) and OFF below 500 (wet). The 500-600 gap is the hysteresis band that stops the pump flickering.
Bamboo sticks, recycled containers, and borrowed or donated parts. We bought only the core electronics.
Runs on solar, with no mains power and no battery waste.
Waters only when the soil is actually dry, so nothing is wasted.
Our booth is built the same way, green from project to display.
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SJK Tukau, Miri, Sarawak