Maya Hall
Lantern Staff
What most students do not know about the agriculture department is that they not only deal with just crops and livestock, but there are also classes that involve science as well. Derek Foust, assistant professor of agriculture, has recently been working on a ‘food computer’, a system that involves hydroponics and light to grow plants.
Foust had become inspired to create a food computer when he stumbled across a tweet on Twitter by MIT about an open agriculture initiative that involved projects like food computers. He then began reading more into it and was then interested in creating a project of his own that would not cost as much money to make.
“The design that I am creating is called the M.V.P.; it’s a minimum viable project, which is essentially to show that it is a very basic one compared to a lot of the other ones,” Foust said. “Looking at [the one tweeted by MIT], it was created just by a team of researchers out in St. Louis, Missouri with the intent of building one of these that can be done with relatively little technical expertise and fairly cheaply.”
Hydroponics is a type of plant growing process that uses other things besides soil such as sand or liquid. It also involves using added nutrients and can be done in different ways. Foust’s food computer is a type of hydroponics unit that uses nutrient solutions and light in order to grow the plants.
“What makes this different from a traditional hydroponics unit is that it is autonomously storing a lot of the data about the internal environment,” Foust said. “Mine is very basic, [it collects] temperature, humidity and light intensity.
There are other ones that are much more sophisticated and there are food computers that cost thousands of dollars that are out there. The one I tried to make is supposed to be one where you should be able to do it on a pretty small budget, for about $300.”
The food computer is not fully completed yet though. Foust still spends time working on it when he can. Overall, he’s been working on it for about a year.
“I’m mostly done with it, but we’re still working on the software side working out some of the kinks,” Foust said. “I’ve only been working on it here, and there since I’ve been teaching and also working on another project here at the facility.”
Foust has crop science classes next semester and intends to use the food computer in the classroom, especially when teaching hydroponics. He thinks it will be a neat way to teach students about the topic and showcase the usefulness of technology.
