Smart Microgreens
A dartboard repurposed as a soil-less microgreens planter kit with digital interventions for growth.
Tools/Skills:
Microcontrollers, organic/non-natural interfaces, interaction design.
Timeline:
Spring 2025
Phase 1: How can we salvage or reuse an obsolete object?
I found an electronic dartboard at Goodwill with the intention of repurposing it into something different, but paying attention to the affordances of the dartboard.
My first thought was using the little holes to grow plants.
But how do I grow plants on plastic? With no soil?
With a little help from my community and a LOT of trial and error, I figured out how to successfully sprout chia microgreens on the plastic surface.
I chose chia because chia seeds are widely available in grocery stores, compared to other types of microgreen seeds.
I identified four key stages of growth:
1) Germination
2) Seedling
3) Growth
4) Harvest
I learned how plant care differed between each stage of growth.
Phase 2: How can we help beginners develop an intuitive understanding of plant care?
I found that the most crucial factor in growing microgreens successfully on plastic was watering, specifically, not overwatering at the growth stage. I experimented with different sensors as well as different water-dry cycle timings to determine what was optimal.
I did some lo-fi prototyping to determine the best way to convey 1) What stage of growth a section was in and 2) How to convey that a section needed water or could be left alone.
Ultimately, I decided to use the natural circle shape of the dartboard to indicate different growth phases, and show when a section was good on water with LEDs that were controlled by a humidity sensor.
When I did some light user testing, I found that users liked the almost “gamified” aspect of waiting for the water light on a section to turn from green to red after watering. To me, this indicated a high level of engagement and investment that is necessary for a learning tool.
Users also liked the sections as guides to be able to visualize how the seedlings changed throughout the growth process.
