Every day, more than 9 billion gallons of water are used for irrigation in the U.S. of which approximately 50% is wasted due to inefficient irrigation systems. In fact, water wastage is even common in our neighborhoods and cities.
E-rrigation is a mobile application that serves as a sprinkler system designer. Users create designs by plotting land/sprinklers, and specifying additional info. Then, the app calculates crucial statistics about a given design plan in order to optimize water usage before the sprinklers are put into place.
It does this by eliminating overflowing and repetitive watering of the same regions. By providing these statistics, E-rrigation reduces water usage even before sprinklers are put into place: cutting down on expenditures in the long run.
Using the app is easy: Users simply have to plot their land area and sprinklers by tapping on the screen. However, the calculations that take place beneath the hood are a lot more complex.
E-rrigation must be able to distinguish between whether the overlap of 2 sprinklers is outside the land or inside the land or both.
It must also detect a special case of 3 circles overlapping vs the normal case (both of which require lots of mathematical calculations)
It also has to determine which side of a sprinkler is overflowing.
Below are links to access some of the important files containing code for the application.
- MainActivity.java - Code for plotting land, sprinklers, adjusting angle/radius, and more. Also contains calculations and displaying of results.
- activity_main.xml - Layout for app's main screen.
- additional_info.xml - Dialog that pops up to ask users for additional information.
- result.xml - Dialog box that displays statistics to users.
As shown by the images below, water wastage through inefficient sprinkler placement is a global issue:
- Agricultural Use: Since farms use a large quantity of water, farmers can more efficiently plot sprinklers on a large-scale using E-rrigation.
- Civic Use: Water wastage is common near neighborhoods, cities, and even schools. Using E-rrigation, the city can cut down on its budget by effectively placing sprinklers.
- General Calculations: At its core, E-rrigation is an app that performs complex calculations about areas of multiple circles and lines. Because of the lack of software that calculates areas like this, E-rrigation can be used.
- Example: If a painter wanted to paint an art piece by placing circles such that some were partially overlapping on top of each other (shown below), then they could use the app to accurately determine the area of visible regions of the artpiece and how much paint to use.
