Process

Outline your approach to the project? What ideas did you generate and how did you refine or reject them? What did you research and explore? what were the design choices? What challenges were encountered and how did you resolve them?

The project takes only one outdoor parameter into account - temperature. There was not sufficient time to integrate the other parameters - humidity, wind speed and direction, noise, air quality - that make the window really intelligent.

First step was to use a temperature sensor to read and communicate the outdoor temperatures.

The second step was to condition the window opening mechanism to open when the outdoor temperatures lie between 72F and 75F. The window opening mechanism is a motor, which is conditioned to run in one direction (opening) when the temperature is greater than 72 but less than 75 and if a button shows the window to be closed. The motor also runs in the other direction (closing) when if the temperature is outside that range and the button shows the window to be open.

The third step was to send an email to the occupant’s account whenever the window opens. 

This being my first project in this field, I research and explored everything from the code structure to importing libraries for the temperature sensor. For the motor to run in one direction then the other when prompted, I used an H-bridge. Each step into the project raised more questions. For example, I realised that I needed a signal within the set-up that would stop the motor when the window was completely open or completely closed. For this, I used a switch which is meant to be pressed down when the window is completely open. I planned to use a second switch for when the window is completely closed, but I never got round to it.