2016 - Present

Start-up project; Business Plan

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Develop Tools:

Product mock-up: Photoshop. Cinema 4D.

Circuit system: CAD.

Cornutopia Mobile Application Development: Flutter → Xcode, Swift

Application UI/UX: Swift, Photoshop

AI development: TensorFlow → Pytorch

Introductory video: After Effects, Premiere, Lookin

 

    Cornutopia is an automatic intelligent irrigating system, featuring an irrigator with a micro sprinkler and two underground irrigation tubes, a plant monitor with a 360° infrared camera, and a corresponding smartphone application.

 

    Designed initially specifically for people who are devoid in taking care of plants at home, Cornutopia provides a platform in which people are able to look up the plants, and moreover to communicate with the plants when they are absent.

 

Project Goals and Importance:

    This project attempts to explore the distance between nature and human being, and to offer a possibility for people that can rejuvenate from daily works by connecting with nature.

1. Provide an automatic intelligent plant irrigator for people who cannot have enough time taking care of plants.

2. Design and provide an artificial intelligent plant communicator for people that could manage and be informed their plants status, and communicate with their plants through a smartphone application.

 

Addressing this Project:

General Steps:

1. Research similar product in the markets; determining the specific demands of product; research and develop different parts of products; assembling the products; finding the materials. This part of project is going to be implemented with other resources, and aim to decide the final prototype of product.

2. Designing and building the smartphone application for people that can control and check the plants from distance.

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Goal 1 Specific Steps:

1. Build the specific market analysis for the similar products;

2. Decide and rank the functions of this product;

3. Research and develop electronic circuit, chip board, battery, motor, water tank, soil sensor, camera detector, sprayer and irrigator, materials for different parts of product;

4. Prototype 0 implements the fully function of electronic circuit with different chips;

5. Prototype 0-1 implements the water circulation system;

6. Prototype 0-2 implements the electronic circuit system with water circulation, sensor;

7. Prototype 0-3 implements the whole system with our own designed chip board;

8. Prototype 0-4 implements the whole irrigator system with our own designed chip board, motor with outsource battery;

9. Prototype 0-5 implements the system with chip board, motor and portable battery;

10. Determine the final external form of product and use 3D print to implement the irrigation system;

11. Assemble the current product parts to the 3D print prototype;

12. Research different materials for the product and decide which materials can be used;

13. Final prototype.

 

Goal 2 Specific Steps:

1. Determine all kinds of function of the product;

2. Decide manual mode and chat mode as the primary function of application;

3. Implement the basic design strategy of the product;

4. Program OCR for plant communicator while develop the application using swift;

5. Train the communicator with basic lexer and parser in both Chinese and English;

6. Implement user experience test 0 for the basic UI/UX design;

7. Implement user experience test 0-1for the fixed UI/UX design;

8. Implement user experience test 0-2 for command mode communicator;

9. Program chat mode of communicator based on the ELIZA AI program;

10. Implement user experience test 0-3 for the chat mode;

11. Build the whole application with the product;

12. Product test 0 for the product and application connection;

13. Final product prototype.

 

Ideology:

Cornutopia: Cornucopia + Utopia

 

    In this very moment of time, the world is collapsing. It is an emergency, in order to survive as a species. We need to define our utopia. The Paris climate accord is a modern utopia impossible to imagine. But overcoming our environmental challenges in the only wan we can survive. We have to imagine something that doesn’t exist, carve intentionally into the future and demand space for hope, weave a matriarchal dome.

    Let’s imagine a world where nature and technology collaborate and make a song about a musical mockup then move into it.

    Let’s embrace nature for our destination.

    In mythologies around the world, after a disaster one captures the spirit and starts anew.

    Carved out of the first fauna.

    We arrived on a new island with mutant species, unknown hybrids of birds and plants. Our past is on loop, turn it off.

    Let’s be intentional about the light.

    Imagine a future.

    Be in it.

    The intention of this product is to offer a shelter, a temporary space, for people in this chaotic world. This product is a message to the world that the escape is still an option. This product offers a transient time that people can have a moment talk with their plants and have a moment of relief.

    The intention of this product is never to achieve a technical breakthrough, the technology and program behind the communicator is rather simple, but to use the pre-input sentences to talk with people like a friend. This is why I decided to use the tone of child for the communicator. I wish to recall that innocent moment for the people.