A “hackathon” happening later this month at N.C. State University's Plant Science Initiative has a lofty goal: to accelerate agricultural sustainability using technologies such as machine learning and 3D printing.
Hackers, bribed with “pizza and pop,” will be solving major challenges at the N.C. PSI Hackathon – but the overarching goal is to create more interest in ag-science opportunities outside of just the greenhouse, said Adrian Percy, executive director of the North Carolina Plant Sciences Initiative.
The hackers – expected to range from dabblers to experienced coders – have multiple challenges to tackle. One scenario has coders designing software that can distinguish between the leaves, hypocotyl and roots of growing plant seedlings. Another deals with designing an inexpensive 3D printer to make repetitive tasks in plant and microbial biology “less tedious and more accessible.” And a project targeted at beginner coders involves programing a camera system as a “gel alarm” to let researchers know when their experiments are ending.
But finding solutions is just part of the mission.
“The ultimate goal is to suck students from outside of ag and into the ag world,” Percy said.
The challenges in agriculture science are huge, he said. They include coming up with ways to feed the global population. Answering those challenges will require looking outside the traditional biology arena, and to other disciplines such as data science and engineering, he added.
“Ultimately, what we’re trying to do is pull in students from other disciplines outside of agriculture to get them thinking about issues in agricultural research they could contribute to,” Percy said.
That’s as it’s also about getting students already involved in agriculture and biology experience in thinking outside of the traditional laboratory space.
The event, which starts Friday, Oct. 21 and lasts through Oct. 23, is being held by the Center for Environmental Farming Systems and is open to students at all area universities, from N.C. State to UNC-Chapel Hill to NC A&T to Wake Forest University.
