An Introduction to Agri-Tech from TecGirls
Software Cornwall have been assisting Caitlin Gould of TecGirls to run a small series of outreach activities to primary schools.
Primary School Sessions
The series of visits to years 4, 5 and 6 students in Cornwall mix engineering, creativity and of course coding. The sessions are based around the BBC Microbit and an Adafruit Plant Monitor kit. They encourage the children to think how technology is used in agriculture and how it can be harnessed to improve crop yields. The kits when set up can ensure that house plant is watered sufficiently, but not too much. Further monitoring parameters are also part of the construction to keep an eye on temperature and light levels necessary for a plant to grow.
The classes of children are initially introduced to technology on the farm and what farms of the future might look like. Then with the BBC Microbits distributed to them all the students start by writing some simple code in pairs and then move on to monitoring the light levels and temperatures in the classroom.
After this they are split into the three groups. One to carry on with the code development by extending it to include sensing soil dampness and switching an output to control the water pump. Another group to build the water pump and attach the Bonsai Buckeroo to the Microbits and the third to pot the plant, decorate the kit and to photograph and blog the build for a presentation to the rest of the school.
When everyone had completed their parts the three groups came back together. The pump and water supply was added to the plant and the code uploaded to the BBC Microbit. Then comes the careful adjustment of the water monitor and delivery to the pot plant. Thankfully so far there have not been any serious floods reported.
Outcomes
Listening to feedback from the teachers it appears that the children have been loving the experience. They have been overheard recounting their exploits to others during the lunchbreaks. At the end of the day the kits with instructions remain with the schools to be able to be repeated at a later date with other groups and later years.