The EPICS program, an acronym for Engineering Projects in Community Service, provides students an opportunity to create engineering solutions to “real world” problems. This honors thesis project is a collaboration with the EPICS program, the Vietnam Smart Agriculture EPICS team, and the Da Nang University of Technology (DUT) in Da Nang, Vietnam. The goal of the Vietnam Smart Agriculture EPICS team is to design an accessible system to reduce water consumption for Vietnamese small farmers through the use of smart agriculture technology. In January of 2023, my EPICS team and I were able to travel and interview five farmers in the Tra Que Farm to complete a needs assessment. The focus of this thesis project is to provide background research and to complete a feasibility study to aid the Vietnam Smart Agriculture EPICS team in developing a smart agriculture device to aid small farmers with overwatering. The thesis includes a literature review investigating solutions for evaluating the water needs of crops, delves into insights gathered from interviews with Vietnamese small farmers, and data collected from their farms.

As a result of the increase of pollution related to industrialization in Vietnam, acid rain has become a prevalent issue for Vietnamese farmers who are forced to rinse their crops – risking damage due to overwatering and poor harvest. Thus, the team was motivated to develop a solution to harmful impacts of acidic rainwater by creating a system with the ability to capture rainwater and determine its level of acidity in order to optimize the crop watering process, and promote productive crops. By conducting preliminary research on rainfall and tropical climate in Vietnam, existing products on the market, and pH sensors for monitoring and device material, the team was able to design a number of devices to collect, store, and measure the pH of rainwater. After developing a number of initial design requirements based on the needs of the farmers, a final prototype was developed using the best aspects of each initial design. Tests were conducted with varying structural and aqueous materials to represent a broad range of environmental conditions. While the scope of the project was ultimately limited to prototyping purposes, the principles explored throughout this thesis project can successfully be applied to a fully-functioning production model available for commercial use on Vietnamese farms. Given more time for development, improvements would be made in the extent of materials tested, and the configuration of electronics and data acquisition, in order to further optimize the process of determining rainwater acidity.

As a result of the increase of pollution related to industrialization in Vietnam, acid rain has become a prevalent issue for Vietnamese farmers who are forced to rinse their crops – risking damage due to overwatering and poor harvest. Thus, the team was motivated to develop a solution to harmful impacts of acidic rainwater by creating a system with the ability to capture rainwater and determine its level of acidity in order to optimize the crop watering process, and promote productive crops. By conducting preliminary research on rainfall and tropical climate in Vietnam, existing products on the market, and pH sensors for monitoring and device material, the team was able to design a number of devices to collect, store, and measure the pH of rainwater. After developing a number of initial design requirements based on the needs of the farmers, a final prototype was developed using the best aspects of each initial design. Tests were conducted with varying structural and aqueous materials to represent a broad range of environmental conditions. While the scope of the project was ultimately limited to prototyping purposes, the principles explored throughout this thesis project can successfully be applied to a fully-functioning production model available for commercial use on Vietnamese farms. Given more time for development, improvements would be made in the extent of materials tested, and the configuration of electronics and data acquisition, in order to further optimize the process of determining rainwater acidity.