TBT- 2017:

Challenge

PLANT GROWTH MONITORING ROBOT

1. Introduction
Urban Agriculture in land-stripped cities involving roof top/terrace farms can yield
rich dividends in the form of herbs, vegetables and fruits. Urban terrace farms can
also provide an effective solution for disposing household waste. A number of such
farms on rooftops/terraces have come up in recent times serving as a source of fresh
organic food for households living in its vicinity.

However, regularly monitoring plant growth in urban terrace farms is a tedious, but
important task to maximize yields. Regularly monitoring and reporting the status of
plants in the farm can prevent withering, provide early indication of plant diseases and
prevent overgrowth. One of the key aspects of regular monitoring is to report the
growth status of the plants in the farm.

e-Yantra has designed a theme that attempts to automate this routine task of
monitoring and reporting plant growth status in such farms. In this theme, we have
made an arena that outlines an urban terrace farm with ten Cultivation Slots
numbered 1-10. Each Cultivation Slot may or may not contain a plant.

The robot has to do the following:

1) Detect the presence/absence of a plant in a Cultivation Slot.

2) If a plant is present, note down its Cultivation Slot number, estimate and indicate
its growth status as Healthy, Overgrown or Stunted.
3) After traversing the arena, display the growth status of the plants along with their
respective Cultivation Slot numbers.

The challenge is for your team to design a solution to find the fastest way of
completing the task. The robot that performs the task the best as per a given set of
rules is the WINNER.

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2. Problem Statement
Make an autonomous robot that performs the following tasks:

❖ The robot starts from the IN position of the arena representing an urban terrace
farm (Refer to Figure 1). The farm consists of ten Cultivation Slots numbered 1-
10.
❖ A plant is represented in the arena by a block. Each plant can have any one of the
following growth status – Overgrown (O), Healthy (H) or Stunted (S). The
different growth status of a plant is depicted by the height and color of the block
as listed in Table 1.

Growth status Height Color

Overgrown 12 cm Green

Healthy 8 cm Blue

Stunted 4 cm Red

Table 1: Depiction of Growth Status

❖ Each Cultivation Slot may or may not have a plant in it. If the Cultivation Slot
does not have a plant in it, it is referred to as Vacant (V).

Figure 1: Arena

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❖ Three Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs), each of a different color, Red, Green, and
Blue are used to indicate the growth status of the plants. Instead of separate
colored LEDs, teams are free to use a RGB LED having all the three colors. Size
of LED should be 5mm. Figure 2 shows the picture of a LED.

Figure 2: Light Emitting Diode (LED)

Note:
o LEDs are not provided with the robotic kit; teams have to purchase them
from an electronic shop.
o The LEDs should be placed on the robot such that they are visible for
judging without any difficulty.

❖ The robot starts from the IN position of the arena and does the following for each
Cultivation Slot from 1 to 10:
1. Visits each Cultivation slot.
2. If the Cultivation Slot is Vacant, it sounds a buzzer for 500ms and notes
down the Cultivation Slot number.
3. Otherwise it does the following:
(i) Identifies the growth status of the plant and glows the
corresponding colored LED. (If the block is red, glows the red
LED, if the block is blue, glows the blue LED and if the block
is green, glows the green LED).
(ii) Notes down the Cultivation Slot number and growth status of
the plant in that slot as O, H or S. An empty Cultivation Slot is
indicated as V.
4. After reaching the OUT position it does the following:
(i) Displays the Cultivation Slot numbers along with growth
status of the plants in those Cultivation Slots on the LCD
screen. Refer to the display format explained in Section 9
(Theme Rules).
(ii) Sounds the buzzer continuously. Sound of the continuous
buzzer indicates END of task.
3. Arena
The arena for this theme is an outline of an urban terrace farm having ten Cultivation
Slots. A square outline is provided to place the Plants. More details about placing of
the Plants is mentioned in Section 4(iii).

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Figure 1 represents an example arena with 10 Cultivation Slots numbered 1 – 10 – In
2, 4 and 7, the growth status of the plants is Stunted, in 5, 6 and 10 plants are
Healthy and in 1, 3 and 9 Overgrown plants are present; Cultivation Slot number 8 is
Vacant.
A black line marks the path for the robot to traverse the arena. This path consists of
several nodes (black dots on the path), to help the robot identify Cultivation Slots and
Plants.

4. Preparing the arena

Each team prepares the arena. Preparing the arena consists of three major steps:
(i) Printing the provided design on a flex sheet.
(ii) Preparing the Plants
(iii) Placing the Pants in the arena

These steps are discussed below:

(i) Printing the design on a flex sheet
The arena design is as shown in Figure 3.

Figure 3: Flex Design

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A Corel Draw (.cdr) file containing the arena design will be given to the teams. Each
team prints the arena design according to the directions given in the Task 1- Flex
Printing folder.
➢ Details of arena design
• Dimension of the flex sheet is 213 cm x 182 cm.
• Cultivation Slots for the Plants are indicated on the arena. Refer to Figure 1
& 3 for details.
• Teams are not authorized to make any changes in the arena. Any team making
any unauthorized modifications will be disqualified from (TBT-2017):
Challenge.
(ii) Preparing the Plants:
Thermocol sheets are used to prepare the Plants.
1. Blocks of three different dimensions and colors are to be made to represent the
Plants.
2. The dimensions and colors for different blocks are listed below:

Color Dimensions

Green 6cm x 6cm x 12cm

Blue 6cm x 6cm x 8cm

Red 6cm x 6cm x 4cm

Table 2: Dimensions of the Blocks

If the thermocol sheets of required dimensions are not available then the teams
may cut or join the available sheets on their own and make blocks of the
required dimensions. Refer to Figures 3, 4 and 5 below.
3. The color of the block is used only for visual differentiation of the growth
status of the Plants. Use appropriate colored chart paper to cover the blocks.
(Slight variations in the shades of red, green and blue chart paper can be
tolerated).
4. Teams should prepare a total of 5 red, 5 green and 5 blue blocks.

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F Figure 4: Dimensions of Red colored Figure 5: Dimensions of Blue colored

block block

Figure 6: Dimensions of Green colored block

(iii) Placing the Plants:

1. Placement of the Plants is given in the form of a configuration table. An

example of a configuration table is given in Table 3.

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Cultivation Slot Plant

growth
Number
status

1 Over grown
2 Stunted
3 Over grown
4 Stunted
5 Healthy
6 Healthy
7 Stunted
8 Vacant
9 Over grown
10 Healthy
Table 3: An Example Configuration Table
Suppose this configuration table is used for placing the Plants on the arena, the
completed arena will look like the one shown in Figure 1.
2. This is an example used to illustrate the placement of Plants. In the
competition/video demonstration, you will be given a configuration table with
the growth status of the Plants present at 10 Cultivation Slots randomly.
3. Note that each Plant has to be placed in arena within the indicator box based
on the Configuration table.

5. Hardware Specifications:
❖ Only one robot is allowed per team.
❖ All participating teams must use only Firebird V robot sent to them in the kit.
❖ Teams may connect external actuators along with their driver circuits to the
Firebird V robot only on the condition that the actuators must be controlled
through the Firebird V robot.
❖ No other microcontroller-based board shall be attached to the Firebird V robot.
❖ Team shall not dismantle the robot.
❖ The robot should be completely autonomous. The team is not allowed to use any
wireless remote or any other communication protocol or devices such as a camera
while the robot is performing the task.
• The team is also not allowed to use any other sensors apart from those provided in
the kit.

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❖ The robot is not allowed to make any marks on the arena while traversing the
arena. Any robot found damaging the arena would be immediately disqualified.
The final decision in all matters is at the discretion of the e-Yantra team.

6. Power Supply
❖ The robot can be charged through battery or auxiliary power supply. These are
shipped with the robot.
❖ The team cannot use any other power source for powering the robot.
❖ The team can use auxiliary power during practice but the final demonstration
should only be made using only battery-powered robot.

7. Controls
• The robot must be completely autonomous.
• It should not receive any extraneous input.

8. Software Specifications
• e-Yantra has provided all the teams with AVR Studio 4.17, a free software for
programming the AVR microcontroller. A participating team is free to use any
other free/open source Integrated Development Environment (IDE) for
programming the AVR microcontroller.
• As per e-Yantra policy, all your code and documents are open-source and may be
published on the website.

9. Theme Rules
• The maximum time allotted to complete the task is 8 minutes. A maximum of two
runs will be given to a team (the better score from the two runs will be considered
as the team’s score). A maximum of two repositions (explained below) will be
allowed in each run.
• At the start of a run, the robot will be placed at the IN position. The castor wheel
of the robot should be on the horizontal black line at the IN position.
• The team should switch ON the robot when asked by the reviewer. This is the start
of a run. The timer will start at the same time.
• The robot should traverse the arena; detect the growth status of the Plants in each
Cultivation Slot. Indicate the growth status by turning ON the appropriate Light
Emitting Diode (LED), Red, Blue or Green.
• LED should remain ON until the robot reaches the next Cultivation Slot or the
OUT position.
• The robot should sound a buzzer for each Vacant slot. The buzzer should be ON
for 500ms.

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• After reaching the OUT position, the robot displays the Cultivation Slot numbers
along with growth status of the plants in those slots and indicates the absence of a
plant if any, on the LCD screen. Refer to Figure 7 below.
• At the same time, the robot sounds a continuous buzzer to indicate END of the
task. Buzzer sound for more than 5 seconds will be considered as continuous
buzzer.
• Display Format: We use the example arena shown in Figure 1 to illustrate the
display format. With reference to Figure 1 – In Cultivation Slot numbers 2, 4 and
7, the growth status of the plants is Stunted; Cultivation Slot numbers 5, 6 and 10
have plants that are Healthy. Cultivation Slot numbers 1, 3 and 9 have Over
grown plants; while Cultivation Slot number 8 is Vacant.

Figure 7: LCD Display Format

• Figure 7 illustrates the LCD display when the robot completes the task correctly.
O – Overgrown, H – Healthy, S- Stunted and V – Vacant.
Note: If there are no plants of a particular growth status O, H or S, then that
growth status need not be displayed on the LCD.
• The robot must be started by only one switch. The robot must be self-contained
and not externally operated by wire or by remote radio control during the
competition. The starting procedure of the robot should be simple and should not
involve giving robot any manual force or impulse in any direction.
• Once the robot is switched on, human intervention is NOT allowed. Placing of the
Plants on the arena as well as alignment of the robot must be done before the run.
• A run ends and the timer is stopped when
1. The robot stops and sounds the continuous buzzer or
2. The maximum time limit for completing the task is reached or
3. The team needs restart (explained below) but has used both restart options of
that run.
NOTE: A run ends as soon as the robot sounds the buzzer. However, the robot
should retain the display on the LCD for evaluation.
• In case of any disputes/discrepancies, e-Yantra's decision is final and binding.

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• e-Yantra reserves the rights to change any or all above rules as it deems fit.
Any change in rules will be highlighted on the website and notified to the
participating teams.

10. Reposition
• When a robot goes off the path or knocks a Plant, the team may request for a
Reposition. During a reposition, the robot will be placed at the same position
from where it started going off its path. During a reposition, the timer will not be
paused or set back to zero; rather the timer will keep running.
• Each team is allowed a maximum of two repositions in each run. All repositions
require the approval of the reviewer; the team will be disqualified if the robot is
handled within the arena without approval.
• During reposition, a participant cannot feed information to the robot. A participant
may not alter a robot in any manner that alters its weight. However, participants
are allowed to adjust sensor position and make repairs. The reviewer’s decision
is final.
• During a reposition, team members can place the plants in their original position
(if knocked off by the robot) only after the reviewer’s approval.
• Participants are not allowed to keep anything inside the arena other than the robot.
• The time measured by the reviewer will be final and will be used for scoring the
teams. Time measured by any participant by any other means is not acceptable for
scoring.

11. Judging and Scoring System

• The competition time for a team starts from the moment the robot is switched ON.
The timer will stop as soon as the robot finishes the task.
• The better score of the two runs for a team will be considered as the final score of
the team.
• The team’s total score is calculated by the following formula:

Total Score = (480 - T) + (CD*80) + (30*C) + B – P

Where:
• T is the total time taken to complete the task in seconds. T equals 480
o If the team is unable to complete the task in 8 minutes.
o If the team has exhausted both the repositions for a run and the
robot once again goes off the path thus needing a reposition.

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• CD is the number of Plants for which the growth status is correctly
detected. Correct detection is identified by the following cases:
o When there is a Plant in the Cultivation Slot, the corresponding
LED glows.
o When a Cultivation Slot is Vacant, buzzer is turned ON for
500ms (milliseconds).

• On the LCD display when a Cultivation Slot number appears against the
correct growth status (O, H, S or V), 30 points are awarded. C is the total
count of such correctly displayed numbers.
• B is a bonus of 100 points awarded if the robot completes the task without
o Touching any plant,
o Damaging the arena, and
o Taking any reposition
• P is the penalty of 20 points deducted if the robot bumps into a plant or
touches a plant. For each collision/contact, a total of 20 points will be
deducted from the final score.

ALL THE BEST…..!!!

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