Making it to the top 50 of Google Developers Solution Challenge !
Being in the top 50 finalists at the Google Developers Solution Challenge 2022 worldwide is the most prestigious thing. The Solution Challenge 2022 has students from several renowned institutions worldwide competing in it.
“ The difference between possible and impossible is hard work and commitment.” ~ Robert Doyle
As the above maxim states , the only way to make it to the top 50 is pure hard work along with a unique solution which aims at solving at least one of the 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
Before moving ahead with our solution challenge project, for those of you who are unaware about the Solution Challenge, I have prepared a small gist for you.
What exactly is the Solution Challenge held by Google Developers ?
The Solution Challenge is a competition held by Google Developers , an organization that advocates and creates resources for various Google tech. It also helps in building communities such as GDG, GDSC, etc. The aim of Solution Challenge is to build innovative solutions with a view of achieving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. The mission of the 2022 Solution Challenge is to solve for one or more of the United Nations 17 Sustainable Development Goals using Google technology.
Here are a few references that can help you know more about Solution Challenge :-
https://developers.google.com/community/gdsc-solution-challenge
I am sure after reviewing this, everyone must have had a basic idea about it.
💡Solutions Design:
Before designing a solution, it is essential to consider the following parameters.
#1 How to identify a problem: The first step is to have a clear and well-defined problem before you start building your solution.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65jliGmA5iU
#2 How to identify a solution: Next step is to identify the best solution based on your user’s needs and also on your team’s resources and capabilities.
#3 Designing the interface: Now it’s time to design your solution’s interface and how a user will interact with the solution. This work is where the UI and UX design comes in.
#4 Designing the technology: Once you fully understand the problem and how a user will interact with your solution, we design the technology.
For understanding how to go about building your design, you all can follow the above tutorials.
Moving ahead to how we designed our project with an aim to solve the UN Goals.
#1] Identification of Problem Statement and our Motivation behind it.
The impact of climate change in India has an adverse effect on the crops and most of the agricultural crops are being badly affected. Predicting the crop in advance of its production would help farmers take appropriate measures for marketing and storage. Implementation of such a system with an easy-to-use web-based graphic user interface and the machine learning algorithm will be carried out. The results of the prediction will be made available to the farmer.
Overwatering decreases the fertility of the soil, so it is very important to use water in appropriate quantities. Watering is the key in regions of scarcity of water. Due to unpredictable climate conditions, a large quantity of crops get affected every year. So, by understanding their region or locality, farmers can save their crops. Some animals ,birds and mostly insects can also cause damage to crops , hence securing farms from them is also an important task. So by finding a solution to all these problems , farmers can get maximum benefit in terms of effort as well as cost. Our project will help the farmers to know about their crop before cultivating them. Through our chatbot , farmers can also get their queries solved and hence it helps them to make appropriate decisions. We attempt to build a prototype of an interactive prediction system. The results of the prediction will be made available to the farmer.
#2] How to identify the solution of the problem and developing a solution for it?
Identification of solution consists of covering all aspects of the problem along with solving the UN goals.
Our solution consisted of a Smart agriculture farming system using IoT and Machine Learning. This project will help the farmers to know about their crops before cultivating in the agricultural field and thus help them to make appropriate decisions. It attempts to solve the issue by building a prototype of an interactive prediction system. The results of the prediction will be made available to the farmer. Thus, for such kind of data analytics in crop prediction, there are different techniques or algorithms, and with the help of those algorithms we can predict crops. Moreover , this project helps farmers in the actual farming process with an automatic watering system, providing security and local environmental conditions.
Our main aim was to build a complete agriculture system which includes crop prediction using machine learning, plant disease detection using machine learning, weather forecast prediction system and smart watering system using IoT.
This project aims to help solve the UN Sustainable Goals such as Goal 2: Zero Hunger and Goal 13: Climate Action , by giving farmers crop recommendations and also monitoring crop health with disease detection features and feature to monitor water level, temperature, humidity, soil moisture and security purpose of plant. The project is developed using technologies like IoT and ML and has also helped to solve Goal 9: Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure.
We are covering 3 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): Zero Hunger, Industry, Innovation, & Infrastructure, and Climate Action. As we are making a smart agriculture system, it helps maximize the production of farmers with minimal wastage and effort. So it will help to increase the supply and hence everyone will get some food. This is one of the innovative projects in the market so it is related to innovation. Due to the weather forecasting system, our system is able to predict climate. Hence, Change in climate will already be predicted and hence farmers can get maximum production. So climate action is also included in our project.
#3] Designing the interface
While designing the UI, it should be noted that the solution should be easily accessible by the end-user. The UI should be simple and users should be able to easily access it. Although an attractive UI would actually create interest for the users, it is necessary to create a simple UI to help solve the goals.
To design UIs best, you should consider:
- Users judge designs quickly and care about usability and likeability.
Users don’t mind simple design, but about getting their tasks done easily and with minimum effort. So, understand your users’ contexts and task flows, to fine-tune the best, most intuitive UIs that deliver seamless experiences.
- UIs should also be enjoyable (or at least satisfying and frustration-free).
When your design predicts users’ needs, they can enjoy more personalized and immersive experiences. Delight them, and they’ll keep returning.
Here are UI images of our Smart Agriot Model :-
#4 Designing the technology:
Designing the technology should involve understanding all aspects of the problem and covering them in a way such that all the United Nations Goals which you have chosen should be addressed.
This project is designed so that the farmers will get a brief idea about their crop before sowing it and hence it aims to help them make the necessary decisions to get a better yield. We attempt to build a prototype of an interactive prediction and recommendation system. The farmer will be able to view the results and benefit from it. We have integrated a disease detection model and weather forecast feature with a rent feature for farmers to rent equipment and a chatbot. Thus, for such kinds of data analytics in crop prediction and providing farmers with entire crop cultivation procedures, there are different techniques or algorithms, and with the help of those algorithms, we can predict crops. The user just has to pass some parameters and submit it. The algorithm is used to predict the crop yield and the most suitable crop will be predicted. The plant doctor feature helps the farmers identify diseases affecting their plants. Our model detects plant disease and helps people also know about the solutions if the disease is detected. We have successfully designed a smart watering system that can water plants automatically and as per requirement only, which saves a lot of water. This project can provide security to the farm from animals, and birds as well as from natural dangers like fire, and unconditional rain. We also have added a precision agriculture feature which gives us information about common diseases in plants prior to sowing them.
Thus, in this way, we addressed our problem and provided our solution for it.
💡Testing your solution:-
Before signing off, I would recommend everyone to test your project and see what feedback you all receive from the user. Based on the feedback it is necessary to make the appropriate and necessary changes to your project.
We have tested our solution in home gardening. We chose a soil and from that predicted a beneficial crop which worked nicely and the user got a good yield of the predicted crop. We have implemented this project on our friend’s farm. According to him, the automatic watering system and weather forecasting systems are really fantastic features. As the watering system decreased his efforts a lot and saved a lot of water from getting wasted and energy too required for pumps. Weather forecasting was useful as the farmer got an early prediction of unconditional rain and hence he saved his crops from getting destroyed.
Finally, I would recommend everyone to evaluate their project by themselves based on the evaluation criteria and check if it meets all parameters.
💡Evaluation criteria:-
Impact (60 points)
- Does the entry establish a clear problem or challenge drawn from one or more of the United Nations 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and is it clearly explained which specific SDG targets the entry is solving for? (10 points)
- How effectively does the solution address the challenge identified by the team? (20 points)
- Is there evidence of a next step? Does the team display a plan for future extension if they were to continue? (10 points)
- Is there evidence that the solution has been thoroughly tested with real users? (10 points)
- Is there evidence that the solution was iterated upon based on user feedback? (10 points)
Technology (40 points)
- Does the solution implement all the technical components needed to solve the challenge? (10 points)
- Has the team clearly explained what Google technology they used, why, and included guidance on how to run their code? (10 points)
- Does the video demonstration show the working solution and how a user will interact with the solution? Does the demonstration highlight how Google’s technologies are implemented, and also mention the value the technology provides the users? (10 points)
- Has the team made effective product and technical decisions for their solution? (10 points)
Before signing off, I would express my gratitude to my teammates Ashutosh Gupta, Omkar Dhatingan, Yashrajsingh Bais and Atharva Alshi for playing a vital role in helping me achieve this.
Finally signing off, I hope from my blog users get a fair idea of developing the Google Developer’s Solution challenge project and can benefit from it.
