Forget to Water Plants Often? WMU Students Created a Solution

Have trouble with your house plants because you forget to water them properly? Western Michigan University students came up with a real solution that works.

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When People Get Busy Houseplants Suffer

When parents have full-time jobs, kids, pets, and all the other distractions life can bring it's easy to forget to water house plants or plants out on the porch or anywhere else you have them.

It's easy to forget to water a plant even if you walk by it every day. But what if there was a solution to this problem that required no work once installed?

WMU Students Invent a Self-Watering Planter

Three Western Michigan University engineering students created an award-winning self-watering plant system and they have become a patent away from being able to retire.

The three students created a device that is known as an atmospheric water generator. This is a really slick idea and I'm sure gardeners around the globe are kicking themselves for not thinking of this one. The unit is put into the ground and is set up to takin in moister from the air and then turn it into water making this system self-sufficient. This is an absolutely brilliant idea.

The three WMU students from left to right are Tatenda Zindoga, Anges Nyanamba, and Kate Mih. What started off as a class project soon the students discovered this is a much bigger deal than expected.

When the students realized their project could become a worldwide phenomenon, they needed to put together a marketing, and manufacturing plan.

What started as three separate ideas, soon became one that was named "Selpe." The three students wound up winning first place and earned $3000.

According to WOOD, Tatenda Zindoga originally from Zimbabwe believes this device could help people back home and others around the world. Zindoga said, "I actually do want to push it to actually start something back home in Zimbabwe because we have somewhat of a water crisis because drought seasons are very common, so it could actually help us a lot." The three students are working on the prototype to score their patent to get this product on the market.