A Closer Look at the Micro:bit Smart Agriculture Kit

This week we are going to be taking a closer look at the Smart Agriculture Kit for the micro:bit. This kit is for educational purposes and designed to help teach about coding, electronics and how it can be applied to agricultural techniques. Below is a breakdown of each part that comes in the kit and the projects that come with it.

IoT:bit The IoT:bit is an expansion board designed to help with the creation of IoT projects with the micro: bit. It uses an ESP8266 as a WIFI expansion board and serial port to communicate with micro:bit. It also extends all available I/O ports on the micro:bit which is led by GVS, extending its use by allowing the board to connect to a number of other electronic sensors and devices such as LEDs, photosensors and servos. The IoT:bit also comes with an onboard RTC clock for timing making it the ideal board for creating IoT applications.
	Rainbow LED The Rainbow LED uses a bright and vivid smart colour-changing LED designed with an integration of a control circuit and light-emitting circuit, allowing it to be operated under a low voltage while producing high luminance and large angle scattering
PIR Sensor This PIR sensor module is based on the AM412 pyroelectric digital smart sensor. It uses infrared to for sensing and detecting human and/or animal motion within a distance is around 4-5 meters.
	DS18B20 sensor This brick uses the DS18B20 1-Wire digital temperature sensor from Maxim IC. It can report degrees C with 9 to 12-bit precision, -55C to 125C (+/-0.5C). Each sensor has a unique 64-Bit Serial number etched into it that can allow for a huge number of sensors to be used on one data bus.
DHT11 Sensor This is a temperature and humidity sensor based on the DHT11 module. This element is sensitive to changes in ambient temperature and moisture.
	Sonar:bit This sonar:bit is a 3-5V working voltage ultrasonic module with an incredibly cute design. It is designed to work with only one 3-wire(GVS) cable with a measurement range of 4cm-400cm and is accurate with ±1cm tolerance.
Soil Moisture Sensor This 'low-tech' sensor is ideal for use in your garden or indoor plants detecting the moisture level of the soil. It uses two probes to pass a small current through the soil, reading the resistance to get the moisture level. More water makes the soil conduct electricity more easily (less resistance), while dry soil conducts electricity poorly (more resistance)
	Water Level Sensor This is a simple, easy-to-use water level sensor. The water level is detected via the exposed parallel wires and the water volume, this is then converted to an analogue signal which is output then recognised and read by the micro:bit.
OLED Screen Don't be fooled by the small size of this screen. Its wide field of view and high contrast are aided by its ability to self-illuminate making it very clear and easy to read.
	EF92A 180° Servo This servo is small and lightweight making it easy to integrate into projects. Most servos are normally driven by 5V, however, these ones have been designed specifically to have their lowest working voltage to be 2.7V allowing them to work with the micro:bit.

This kit comes with a step-by-step guide to walk you through completing a number of different projects to learn about modern agriculture, electronics and programming. Here is a quick breakdown of each 

• Project 01: Auto Irrigation in Farmlands - Detects the level of moisture in the soil and waters the crops/plants automatically if the value is less than the desired threshold.
• Project 02: Temp.&Humidity Monitoring in the Greenhouse - Detects the temperature and humidity levels in your greenhouse and displays them on the OLED screen
• Project 03: Artificial Light for Agriculture - Detects the ambient light intensity of a room and turns on the light if it is too low/weak
• Project 04: Farmlands Protection Device - Detects if there is the presence of people/animals approaching and turning on the LED if detected
• Project 05: Water Temperature Detection - Detects and displays the temperature of water
• Project 06: Insect-catching Device - Helps attract insects and bugs into a trap where the servo closes them in
• Project 07: Crops Height Detection - Detects the hight of crops and reports when they reach over a certain level
• Project 08: Auto Pick-up Device - Shakes plants to help drop seeds
• Project 09: Crops Sunshade Device - Detects the intensity of the light and drives the servo to lift a shade
• Project 10: Water Level Monitoring in Fish Ponds - Monitors the water level of a fish pond displaying the current level value on OLED screen, and lights he LED in red if the water level is too high.
• Project 11: Feed at Fixed Time - Uses the RTC to drive a motor for feeding at a fixed time
• Project 12: Birds Anti-Collision Device - Detects the light intensity and drives a servo to close the curtains at a certain level