agBOT Challenge Winners Take Home Thousands
The winning teams have been announced for last weekend’s second annual agBOT Challenge at Gerrish Farms in Rockville. The university and entrepreneurial teams were pitted against each other in competitions involving seed planting and identification or weed detection and eradication. Contestants came from schools and companies from throughout the U.S. and Canada to showcase their innovations and compete for tens of thousands of dollars in prize money.
Organizers say the goal is to "propel innovation in technology and agriculture."
The 2017 agBOT Challenge 2017 Seeding Competition Champion is Team Lairdscape, which earned $25,000 for its autonomous technology. A team from California Polytechnic State University finished second and Muchowski Farms finished third, taking home $15,000 and $10,000, respectively.
On the Weed & Feed Competition side, Prairie Robotics won first place and $25,000. Earning $15,000 and second place was Purdue University, while Team Gizmoze landed $10,000 with its third place finish.
The other competitors represented Virginia Tech, Colorado Mesa University, Ohio State University, PeeDee Precision Ag, North Star Robotics, IUPUI and University of Regina.
Judges for this year’s event included: Yamaha Motor Ventures Chief Operations Officer George Kellerman, The Climate Corp. Director of Engineering Craig Rupp, Broadband Antenna Tracking Systems Chief Executive Officer Bob Peterson, Progressive Indiana Farmer Bill Thompson, Tom Farms CEO Kip Tom and Blue River Technology Chief Technology Officer Lee Reddin.
You can connect to more about the competition by clicking here.