The inaugural Farm Robotics Challenge has officially kicked off! Over the course of the next three months, students from across the country at 13 participating universities and colleges will compete on teams to create new solutions for on-farm challenges. Organized by AI Institute for Next Generation Food Systems (AIFS), UC ANR VINE, Fresno-Merced Future of Food (F3) Innovation, and Farm-ng, the Farm Robotics Challenge presents real-life farm automation scenarios for students to gain hands-on experience with the practical application of robotics in agriculture.

Participants will utilize the state-of-the-art Amiga robot developed by Farm-ng to integrate robotics into agricultural research to accelerate use-inspired translation with a focus on small-farm applications. The Challenge provides a unique opportunity for hands-on interdisciplinary collaboration and aims to grow student interest in the field of ag robotics. Team projects will fit into one or more of the following categories: Autonomy (course navigation), Artificial Intelligence (vision and sensing; dataset collection), and Attachment (implement development for farm tasks).

“It’s going to take a collaborative approach to get to that next food system. [Through the Farm Robotics Challenge] we’re going to be pushing the bounds of how you can apply new tools in places that might not have had access to these tools before. To see this crowd-sourced innovation happening, and to be part of enabling all of these different ideas to come about in such a short period of time… I’m really excited to see what we come up with.” –Ethan Rublee, Founder and CEO of Farm-ng.

Check out the welcome video for students:

https://youtu.be/Mlk52X-suac

For more information, visit https://farmbot.ai or email info@farmroboticschallenge.ai