Cornell researchers farm pixels | Great Lakes Echo
A mannequin of Red Hook Farms inside a digital actuality simulation. Image: Tapan Parikh
By Genevieve Fox
As digital actuality grows within the leisure world, a staff of Cornell researchers is utilizing it to arrange farm employees for arduous work.
Tapan Parikh, an affiliate professor of data science at Cornell University, leads a analysis group that teaches folks the significance of city farming.
“The goal is to approach the idea of a farm visit, but in situations where the cost of travel is considered prohibitive or limiting,” Parikh stated.
It started as a collaboration with Cornell affiliate professor of horticulture Jenny Kao-Kniffin to lift consciousness about soil well being.
With local weather change and rising populations disrupting agriculture, it is vital to show folks to be modern farmers, Kao-Kniffin stated.
“There has to be a way to quickly spread knowledge from farmer to farmer, community to community,” Kao-Kniffin stated.
The staff used drones to take photos and used photogrammetry to create 3D fashions of the Red Hook Farms, the biggest natural farm in New York.
The farm was within the venture and it was handy for the staff to mannequin, Parikh stated.
Cornell hopes to collaborate with different farms to create quite a lot of digital actuality areas for folks to go to and learn to farm. The concept is to doc and document the totally different practices used on a profitable farm.
The platform will probably be accessible to the general public subsequent 12 months via a digital actuality headset or Oculus Quest and PC, Parikh stated.
“We are especially excited to use this technology because it is an opportunity to engage the youth,” stated Parikh.
When folks placed on the headset, they’re positioned within the digital farm. Users can stroll across the farm and watch tutorial movies by the farm managers and employees that illustrate sure practices, corresponding to composting and rising the crops used at Red Hook Farms, he stated.
“It is also possible to be with other people in the virtual reality space,” stated Parikh.
That does not imply it comes with out limitations. Virtual actuality headsets are costly, Parikh stated.
Oculus Quest studies that the beginning worth for one in every of its headsets is $399.
“Some people may not have it or can afford it,” Parikh stated.
The staff hopes to associate with native colleges, libraries and group organizations as a technique to improve entry to those headsets, Parikh stated.
Even with these superior applied sciences, the researchers won’t ever replicate the precise farm expertise, Parikh stated.
“The smells, the sounds, the tastes — there’s always going to be a gap between being there in person and then being there in a virtual space,” Parikh stated.
Despite the bounds, Parikh hopes that digital actuality will probably be helpful in instructing youth about city agriculture. It’s a technique to find out about our meals system and its origins, he stated.
There had been related academic functions. Ferris State University in Big Rapids, Michigan, has been experimenting with digital actuality in lecture rooms for greater than 5 years, stated Andrew Peterson, the college’s director of e-learning.
Most of the courses are targeted on heating, air flow and air-con — often called HVAC — or Science, Technology, Engineering and Math STEM, Peterson stated.
While there may be little information or proof that digital actuality truly helps college students be taught, he believes it does, Peterson stated.
“The engagement is there.”
Although there aren’t any plans so as to add agricultural digital actuality to their curriculum, he thinks it will be very helpful.
In a VR HVAC atmosphere, college students learn to repair issues like a damaged air conditioner in a simulated atmosphere, Peterson stated.
“If you can simulate an HVAC environment, in a farming environment there’s so much of it that’s practical, and so many people don’t have access to those practical environments,” Peterson stated.
If you wish to find out about agricultural practices in China, you possibly can find out about them with one click on of a button with digital actuality, Peterson stated. The great thing about digital actuality is how experimental it’s.
At Cornell, the aim is for the platform for use by others to document farm practices corresponding to irrigation and harvesting in order that customers will sooner or later be capable of enter any kind of farm and be taught totally different practices, Parikh stated.
It may assist cities face up to environmental shocks like flooding if folks higher learn to make them extra resilient, Parikh stated.
The venture is funded by the United States Department of Agriculture and a Cornell Tech Urban Tech Hub Seed Grant.
Parikh’s staff hopes with extra funding they’ll launch the venture early subsequent 12 months.
