My First Programming Project: The Sprinkler

It was the summer of 2015. I was living in a small rental house with my wife, our newborn daughter, and our 3yr old son. Life was busy and chaotic in all the ways it tends to be when you’re raising young kids. But somewhere in the middle of the diaper changes, late night feedings, and the everyday rhythm of family life, I became determined to do something different, something just for me. I wanted to build my very first coding project. It wasn't for a job, not for a class, it was just to see if I could.

The Problem

The idea was simple: automate the lawn sprinklers. We had a patchy, stubborn yard that required moving hose fed sprinkler heads from one section to another every ten minutes. That meant going outside, shutting off a valve, moving the hose, and turning it back on over and over again. This was the exact kind of tedious task that screamed "there has to be a better way." So I gave myself a challenge: Build a system that would handle all of that for me.

Dry and patchy grass needs a solution.

Starting From Zero

I had no real experience in programming except a Fortran class back in college. I had heard of the miniature Raspberry Pi computer and managed to get my hands on one. I taught myself Python programming language, Linux operating system, basic HTML, and web serving using whatever I could find online. I spent late nights buried in Stack Overflow, digging through forums, wiring diagrams, and outdated textbooks, trying to stitch together just enough knowledge to make this thing work. And because I didn’t even know there were better tools available, I wrote every single line of code in Notepad.

My final solution involved controlling DC motorized valves connected to GPIO pins and serving up a barebones HTML interface from the Raspberry Pi so I could trigger each sprinkler zone from my phone.

The Big Test

I built a PVC manifold using parts from the hardware store and set it up on the front porch. The hoses were hooked up, valves were connected, and the Raspberry Pi was powered up. It was a cool summer evening, and I left the front door open so I could keep an eye on things while sitting cross-legged on the floor of the kitchen, laptop beside me, kids hanging out in their own little imaginary worlds.

With the code saved and the server running, I picked up my phone, opened the browser, and pressed “Run.”

And then the excitement began… the relay triggered... the dc motor could be heard purring... the Python script didn't terminate... and from the kitchen my jaw dropped as I watched water begin to flow from the end of the manifold and splash onto the concrete.

It works! Glorious Water!

More Than Just a Sprinkler

It’s hard to describe the feeling in that moment: accomplishment, amazement, satisfaction, and yes, pure joy. It wasn’t just that the sprinkler worked—it was that I made it work. I had taken a problem, something real and frustrating, and solved it with code, electronics, and a whole lot of stubbornness.

My daughter had no idea what I was doing. My son was pretending to be a lion over in the living room. My wife, understandably, couldn’t figure out why I was spending so much energy building something that could’ve been done with a timer and a splitter.

But that didn’t matter.

Because to me, this was the first step on a path that would lead to so much more. That single night, with me crouched on the kitchen floor, peering out at water spraying onto the porch, was the spark that started my journey into 3D printing, circuit design, and programming.

Looking Back

Now, years later, I design my own custom circuit boards, build Wi-Fi-connected devices, and create clean, robust enclosures for all sorts of projects. But none of that would have happened without that first, clunky, hand-coded sprinkler controller. It was messy, inefficient, and wildly over-engineered, but it was mine, and it worked.

I’ll never forget that night. Not because of the tech, but because of what it meant: that I could learn this. That I could build things. That I wasn’t just consuming the world, I was shaping it.

And once you get that feeling, you never want to stop.