The TI Innovation Challenge India Design Contest was as competitive as ever this year, attracting 11,200 participants from 654 different engineering colleges in India. The following highlights this year’s second-runner up team and how they utilized TI technology to solve a real-world problem.
Upon visiting his family farm, Vignesh R and the rest of his team members Manoj Kumar.B, Anandhu Ajith Vyas, Manoj Kumar. K of Easwari Engineering College, Chennai saw first-hand the challenges faced by farmers. The students learned that a common farming issue is the inability to accurately track how much fertilizer should be used for crops.
Putting on their engineering hat, the students set out to create an easily-accessible, low-cost device that would help farmers effectively measure leaf nutrient deficiency and recommend appropriate fertilizer usage, thus increasing farmers' crop yield while reducing cost. They also wanted integrated accurate humidity sensing to help manage grain storage.
The first challenge the team faced was to measure the spectral absorbance of the leaf tissue, which they were able to achieve using TI’s OPT101 optical sensor. As the device needed to be portable and have long battery life, TI’s low-power MSP430 microcontroller was chosen. Other TI parts like the HDC1000 humidity and temperature sensor and bq24210 single-input, single cell li-ion solar battery charger were also used in creating the prototype.
Farmcorder in action
After overcoming the challenges, the team successfully designed Farmcorder, an Agro Advisory System attaining their original goal of keeping the system cost around INR 3000, a price affordable to many farmers in India. The GPS integrated Farmcorder enables the same device to be used by multiple farmers.
Vignesh R., one of the team members, said that the data recorded by the Farmcorder will also prove beneficial to seed manufacturing companies, as they can use this data to improve the quality of the seeds. Integration of modern technology with traditional farming practices can thus help in increasing crop yield and bring about a huge turnover for the agricultural industry.
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| Team Farmcorder demonstrating their project to the Chief Guest, Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam |
Team Farmcorder receiving the second runner-up award |
What is impressive about the Farmcorder is the local relevance of the problem being addressed and the use of TI technology to effectively solve the technical challenges while keeping the cost of the device low.
The TI Innovation Challenge India Design Contest (TIIC IDC) is a platform to unleash the indomitable spirit of the students and witness their innovations. Students improve society and ease of life by applying the engineering skills to real world problems as shown by all this year's submitted projects, of which the top were were showcased at the TIIC IDC 2015 finals event.
Are you an innovation superstar? Get ready for the next opportunity and participate in the 2016 TIIC IDC, which will be announced soon. Please sign up here to receive information as to when the next contest will begin.
