In 2018, Parallel Technologies and Jay Stark from the Omaha branch of our Building Automation department collaborated with students from the University of Nebraska – Omaha (UNO) and King Science Middle School to build a food computer. The open source project is a scalable automated greenhouse that is designed to grow
Through this unique project, UNO students in Dr. Sachin Pawaskar’s graduate capstone class in Management Information Systems had a hands-on opportunity to develop an IoT project while exposing the middle-school students to a new field in STEM that could spark their interest.
“It was really rewarding to work alongside the next generation of engineers,” said Stark. “They really got inspired by the project and to see them get engaged with the technology we work with everyday.”
UNO students assisted in building the food computer while the King Science students developed formulas for growing food. The students collaborated together at both UNO and King Science to put their formulas to the test. Parallel contributed the parts to the food computer. Stark leveraged his expertise in control systems to install the technology that monitored the soil, lighting, temperature, humidity and CO2 within the enclosed structure. He also assisted the students during the meetings with coding and creating formulas that optimize the environment for specific plant growth requirements.