The project of a second-year undergraduate of the Institute of History and International Relations Julia Osipova was included into the winners-list of the second stage of the Student Start-Up competition. She will receive a grant of one million rubles to implement her business idea. The project won in the Creative Industries nomination.
Julia Osipova has developed an autonomous flower container with automatic watering, with the MasterSCADA control system indicating the liquid level in the tank, as well as soil moisture.
The idea of the invention came to Julia spontaneously, she wanted to beautify the city, and the best solution, according to her, were flower containers that could be put on the street. They are convenient as the soil does not need to be moistened in the traditional way. The container system independently determines the soil moisture level and contributes the necessary amount of water to maintain plant growth and flowering.
The plant containers consist of a container with soil and a built-in tank with water for irrigation, its volume is from 10 to 100 litters of water, depending on the height and type of construction. The functioning of the container is provided by soil moisture and water level meters, the latter is supported by an Arduino controller, as well as an Internet module and radio communication.
According to the project presentation, the “smart flower pot” will hold presumably 10 litters of soil, 12 litters of water, and weigh from 20 to 50 kilograms. Moreover, the author of the project offered a wide choice of container design, as well as the material from which it will be made – and this is faience, chamotte, and concrete.
Julia Osipova assures that the device will be available both for representatives of state and public institutions, as well as for individual consumers.
‘I am interested in many things, I like to create something unusual, and, therefore, I decided to try my luck and apply for the start-up competition with my development. I was really surprised? Delighted, and scared when I became a winner. I am planning to rent premises for the placement of goods and will start using the nearest workshop to produce containers,’ Julia Osipova shared her plans.
To remind, in the first stage of the Student Start-Up competition, the winners in various categories were SSU postgraduates Vasilii Ageyev, Oksana Kutikova, Assistant of the Department of General Physics Maksim Inkin and Junior Research Fellow of the Department of Dynamic Modelling and Biomedical Engineering Victoria Skazkina. Read more about their start-up projects here.
The Student Start-Up competition is aimed at providing students with an opportunity to independently or as part of a team gain experience in commercializing their ideas, as well as experience in technological entrepreneurship by creating and developing start-up projects. The competition is organised by the Foundation for the Promotion of Innovation and is part of the Site of University Technological Entrepreneurship federal project.
