Two budding young scientists from Riverlea High School earned well-deserved accolades at the recent Eskom Expo International Science Fair (ISF) for their research project centred around the deployment of an automated watering system designed for water conservation.
The school’s Zané Brown and Romé Harris secured a bronze medal for their research project at the fair.
Their innovative approach involved implementing an automated watering system equipped with realtime monitoring capabilities, precisely regulating the water supply to ensure plants receive the ideal level of moisture while simultaneously minimising water consumption. They then integrated this model into the Arduino Integrated Development Environment (IDE) allowing for continuous soil moisture monitoring and providing timely feedback on soil dryness – thereby indicating the need for watering.
“The whole idea came when visiting the Botanical Gardens plant nursery on a random day, and out of curiosity to learn about plants,” the duo say. “That is when we were told about the problems that the plant nursery faced. We then looked at disadvantages, concerns, need for improvement, etc. That’s when the idea clicked.
“Our teacher played an instrumental role in shaping the project’s development,” they add. “His dedication and passion for science, mathematics, technology, and innovation not only inspired us, but also ignited a spark of curiosity and instilled the value of hard work. As a qualified chemical engineer, his guidance motivated us to delve into extensive reading and exploration.”
Eskom Expo executive director, Parthy Chetty, says: “Eskom Expo is pleased to provide the platform for the only national event of its kind whereby these learners start their journey at the school level and, over many months, progress to higher levels of competition culminating in the International Science Fair. They were motivated by a real-life problem of water scarcity for plants and set about coming up with a technology solution which, I’m sure, will motivate many other girls into the technology field.”