Process: 

Initially we had identified two processes that could pollinate tomato plants, 1) simulating the vibrations of a bumble bee’s wings, and 2) creating controlled wind breezes using fans to spread pollen throughout an encasement. Following these ideas, we had conversations about collecting plant pollen for selective breeding, and discussions regarding the scope of the test product. We arrived at our final product, which we divided into four parts: fabrication of the motor, software development of the motor, software development of the computer vision, flower fabrication and drawings for proof of concept, and documentation of the finished work. The work was divided by Kyle, Nickie, Ruben, and Siyuan, respectively.

The original scope of the project we defined was a little bit larger than the end goal. The computer vision was going to identify and extract individual flowers and trigger the pollinator unit. We removed this function from the final prototype because the communication boards proved to be difficult to use in the time frame available.