Start at the research table with some basic materials, and you'll want plastic scrap bolt and a circuit board to unlock the regular sprinkler. It's a pretty straightforward process, once you've got those researched just craft it and you're good to go. The sprinkler itself covers a nice 3x3 area in whatever direction you point it, and getting water to it is simple enough through pipes or manual filling, but you'll need a battery to keep it running.

Something interesting about coverage - if you're planning a bigger farm setup try placing two or three sprinklers in a triangle pattern, this can actually water around 20 crop plots which is pretty efficient. The water connection is pretty flexible, you can either hook it up to pipes or just fill it yourself if you're still working on your pipe network.

Just keep in mind there's no such thing as an "advanced" version despite what you might've heard, and you don't need to progress the story to get it working. The basic sprinkler does the job just fine, especially when you've got a few of them set up in a smart layout.