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Can your plant send you a message? Discover how IoT works 

A few days ago, at the TechLab of UPC Manresa, within the framework of the Girls in ICT Day and with the support of the Digital Europe MERIT project, students took part in a very special workshop: creating an intelligent system capable of controlling plant irrigation by sending messages to a mobile phone. The workshop was led by Xènia Mata, Helena Cadevall, Llum Martí, Laia Ramírez and Marina Vilardaga, all members of the PUCRA Manresa association and current or former students of the Bachelor’s Degree in ICT Systems Engineering at UPC Manresa.

They were able to show participants that with technology, and more specifically with what is known as the Internet of Things (IoT), many things can be done, some of them in a way that is accessible to secondary and high school students. Imagine having a plant at home and not knowing whether it needs water. What if it could send you a message itself? That is exactly what was built in this workshop. If you want to know how it can be done, keep reading.

What did we do?

The objective of the workshop was to create a system capable of: 

• Measuring the moisture of a plant 

• Analysing whether it needs water 

• And automatically notifying you on your phone 

To achieve this, we combined different technologies making them work together: 

1. Moisture sensor → detects whether the soil is dry or wet  

2. Arduino → receives the data from the sensor and processes it  

3. Python → interprets the information  

4. Telegram Bot → sends messages to your phone  

All together, this forms a small connected system, like the ones we increasingly find in our daily lives. This is an example of what IoT is. 

First step: creating the Telegram bot

The process starts by creating a Telegram bot, which is like an “intelligent contact” you can interact with. This bot can receive messages, respond automatically and send notifications. With tools like BotFather, anyone can create their own bot and use it to interact with real systems. 

Second step: programming with Python

Next, a small program in Python is created, which acts as the “brain” of the system. This program reads the messages from the bot, receives the data from the sensor and decides what should happen. For example, if it detects that the moisture level is too low, it sends a message saying that the plant needs watering.

Third step: connecting the Arduino

Arduino is an electronic board widely used to create technological projects. In this case, the moisture sensor is connected to it, it receives the data from the soil and sends it to the computer. This is done through what is known as serial communication, which allows the computer and Arduino to “talk” to each other.

Fourth step: connecting everything

When everything is connected, the system works as follows: 

1. The sensor measures the plant’s moisture  

2. Arduino sends the data  

3. The Python program analyses it  

4. If the plant needs water, a message is sent to the phone  

In other words, the objective has been achieved: the plant is “talking” to us. 

What is this useful for? 

This project is just an example, but it helps us understand how the real world works. In fact, many companies use similar technologies to control machines in factories, analyse data in real time or improve processes and avoid errors. As explained in the talk after the workshop, nowadays machines also generate data and “talk” constantly, and we can listen to and interpret them to make better decisions. This is industrial IoT. At a personal level, it can also be used at home, for example to turn heating on or off or to know when the washing machine has finished. All of this would also be useful to build a smart city.

Why is this interesting?

Doing a workshop like this is very interesting, as it allows us to realise how exciting the ICT world can be. Through this activity, participants were able to learn programming concepts, understand how sensors work, see how to connect the physical world with the digital one and create something real that works and is useful.

This is just a small example of the potential of the ICT field. With some knowledge, simple applications can be developed, but more and more experts are needed in this field, like those trained at UPC Manresa, first in the Bachelor’s Degree in ICT Systems Engineering and later in the Master’s Degree in Machine Learning and Cybersecurity for Internet Connected Systems, developed within the Digital Europe MERIT project.