Automated Agriculture Arrives at Galloway!

By Head of Community Engagement Gordon Mathis

Have you seen the greenhouse located off the Piazza between the Gresham and the Arnold Buildings? It is full of vegetables, flowers - and a robot! Galloway has embraced 21st century automated agriculture and, in turn, is providing students with authentic, hands-on experience in the application of advanced technology. 

Last year, Assistant Head of School for Academics David Long and Upper Learning Technology Teacher Ojani Eguia planned to install a FarmBot in Galloway’s greenhouse. However, their plans were quickly derailed when the coronavirus pandemic resulted in the closing of the school.

They revived the idea in the fall, and Robotics students Matthew Gillin ‘23, Keeley Hudson ‘24, Nia Junod ‘22, Alex Meza ‘23, and Jackson Reinking ‘23 programmed and troubleshot the FarmBot using open source code Raspberry Pi until it became fully operational in February. The UL students asked students in 1st and 2nd grade for their suggestions for the crops; ultimately, they chose cucumbers, cabbage, tomatoes, strawberries, basil, marigolds, and petunias. 

Remember the X-Y axis from Geometry? The UL students arranged the planting bed as if it were a large X-Y coordinate plane - and it is! Using open source code programmed, the FarmBot runs along the side of the raised bed and carefully places the seeds on specific coordinates. It waters the seedlings and even weeds the garden by removing anything that is sprouting not on the specific coordinates.

Farmbot-grown salad, anyone? Watch a video of the FarmBot in action below!