An Automated Hydroponics Project for Merging Agriculture and Mechatronic Curriculums

Agriculture is Virginia's largest private industry, providing nearly $82.3 billion dollars annually. With this in mind, Virginia has increased its investments in agriculture and has prioritized its research into alternative farming techniques. One such focus area is that of Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA). CEA involves growing crops in environments that are optimized to produce substantially higher crop yields while more efficiently using resources like light, water, land, and nutrients. CEA and techniques related to it require a more diverse set of skills than conventional farming due to the integration of technology necessary to control, automate, and measure crops in a manner that produces the efficiency gains necessary. Virginia Western Community College, located in Roanoke, Virginia, was awarded a 3-year National Science Foundation (NSF) Advanced Technological Education (ATE) grant in June of 2024 to implement a program for combining agriculture and mechatronics into an associate degree for agriculture technicians. This program acknowledges the overlap in competencies that are necessary to meet the needs of future farms. In support of this effort, the Mechatronics and Agriculture Programs are actively cross-pollinating the skill sets in the respective lab exercises. A capstone project that exemplifies this effort and represents equal parts mechatronics and agriculture was undertaken in the Fall 2024 semester by student interns at industry partner Steel Dynamics, LLC (SDI). The sponsored project far exceeded the learning objectives of the capstone class, excelling in teamwork, critical thinking, research literacy, and communication skills in addition to the time management, project planning, and budgeting required by their employer.