Soil management for better crops for all farmers
“Archimedes, our robot, is a soil sampling, crop nutrition dispensing, and data collection robot. Our robot measures, delivers, and records the needed quantity of fertilizers, pesticides, mulch, andwater to plants. Archimedes can be used from small to extra-large farms. Archimedes can be shared among many farmers, making Archimedes a cost-effective soil management robot.”
Archimedes was the “Open Category Robot” created by Aarav Shah, Hriditya Shah, and Prabhav Jalan, with Akshay Goriwale as their coach, and me as their mentor. The team was also fortunate that they had the additional mentoring from Mr. Ashwin Shah.
“What makes farming unsustainable? “What is agriculture?” These 8th graders began their journey asking these and more questions, as they began to visit farms to understand the practice of farming. Over the course of their research they began to recognize the impact of chemical fertilisers, large scale fertiliser and pesticide applications, agriculture run-offs, water consumption, and more. The idea that a farm today could become a desert tomorrow was a daunting concept they had to grapple with.
Farming Robot
More than 90% of farmers in India are small-plot 2-cow farmers, who use a combination of applications to grow their plants and trees. They rely on traditional techniques such as cow dung and home brewed fertlisers like “jeeamrutha.” When subsidies and chemical fertilizers are made available at reasonable costs, these farmers apply chemicals. These inconsistent practices lead to agriculture runoffs, and declining soil health.
Archimedes, the farming robot is designed to measure soil-moisture, npk, and soil temperature in-situ, release the necessary amount of inputs by drilling 6 inches into the soil, and maintaing a databse of feedback, input, and practices. The plan was to integrate these values into a longer-term farm management protocol.
World Robot Olympiads 2019, Costa Rica
Transportation, customs, and security challenges left the robot in many pieces. At the venue of the competition, independently, Aarav and Prabhav worked tireless for 5 hours to put together their broken robot, a true reflection of their knowledge and dedication in the creation of the robot. Unfortunately, more often than not, as a coach and judge, I have realised that it is the adult in the room who has built a large portion of the robot in order to bag the prestigious award. These parents and coaches forget that it is in the years of learning and assimilation, that helps students evolve holistically to succeed in both, competitions and beyond.
These and other experiences have left and enormous inpression on me as an educator and an individual. As a coach and mentor, I found that in nearly every engagement I grew as an professional and an individual.
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