Creating cutting-edge Ag Tech

Nearly 50 NC State University undergraduate and graduate students and postdoctoral scholars spent a fall weekend competing in the N.C. Plant Sciences Initiative’s fourth annual Hackathon, taking on real-world agricultural technology challenges related to sensors, artificial intelligence and more.

Held Oct. 18-20 at the Plant Sciences Building, the Hackathon was designed to help students develop critical interdisciplinary skills like computer coding, design and project management while gaining exposure to industry experts, building professional networks and enhancing their resumes with practical experience. Creativity, teamwork and innovation are emphasized.

Three Tracks, Three Missions

Competitors chose from three tracks, based on their skill level and interests. The tracks focused on three challenges aimed at using technology to help future-proof the food supply.

In one advanced track, participants created sensors that gathered data on soil pH, moisture content and electrical conductivity to create an associated dashboard that would enable farmers to determine crop biomass and height based on those factors.

Another advanced track focused on creating synthetic images to train a model capable of identifying plant species and mapping their performance — information that could ultimately be used to help growers know exactly where and how much to fertilize different parts of a field planted with multiple species of cover crops.

Those in the beginners track developed algorithms to help a web app distinguish between wheat and Italian ryegrass, a key step for advancing precision weed control with sprayers and robots. Participants used no-code environments that now make sophisticated AI available to disciplines outside of computer science.

Participants including Bhavya Jain, a Ph.D. student in electrical engineering, said the fast-paced event gave them a chance to gain experience working with people from different specialties on a common challenge.

Varied Expertise, But One Goal

Jain was part of the Crop Yields Matter team, which won first place in the advanced Smart Sensors in Agriculture track. Others on his team came from different fields — operations research, computer science and horticultural science.

“Now industries require students prepared with knowledge from different backgrounds working together,” Jain said. “So these skills we used in this competition are very helpful. Whenever I do a job search or even start my own company in the agricultural technology space, I think the skills will greatly benefit me.”

Chris Reberg-Horton, one of the organizers for the Hackathon, agreed that interdisciplinary interaction is important in today’s workforce. He also hopes that the event instilled in biologists an appreciation for what artificial intelligence can bring to agriculture and exposed engineers to opportunities in agriculture.

“We want our biologists to understand more about what’s coming — the revolution of our time  — which is artificial intelligence, but we also want to bring all these engineers that are being trained right next door … into agriculture,” he said.

“They may often think about applying the knowledge and training they’re getting to medicine or manufacturing or some other field, and agriculture isn’t their first thought, but this is one way to introduce them to the idea that we’re going to be using the same technology in agriculture.”

Track winners

After completing their projects on Sunday morning, the students presented their results before judges from industry and academia. Here are the winners for each track and their departments:

Crops versus Weeds
First Place: Balihar Kaur, crop science, and Henry Sederoff, environmental science

Second Place: Shreya Dey, biological sciences; Vyomi Shah, computer science; and Jonah Monk, horticultural science

Smart Sensors in Agriculture
First Place: Sai Srikar Puppala, operations research; Steve Amerige, horticultural science; Bhavya Jain, electrical engineering; and Aditya Chitlangia, computer science

Second Place: Jin Xu, chemical and biomolecular engineering; Brett Timmons, horticultural science; Soundharya Khanapur, computer science; and Nitin Dhevar, computer science

Precise Plant Recognition
First Place: Prathmesh Deshpande, computer science; Viraj Sanap, computer science; Artharva Pansare, computer science; and Sina Baghbanijam, electrical engineering

Second Place: Atharv Oak, computer engineering

This post was originally published in Plant Sciences Initiative.