Roborice

- autonomous rice farming robot -

Georgia Tech Research Project

Abhipsa Ujwal | Katelyn Provost | Lazuardi Rinaldi | Saikanam Siam | Zachary Moss
Project Advisor: Joyelle Harris

Our Mission

Roborice is a GT research project with the goal of creating an autonomous & modular rice farming robot that can be deployed in rural agricultural areas, such as in Indonesia or India, that the majority of farmers can afford.

The Problem

By 2050, there will be an estimated 9 billion people on Earth. We want to combat world hunger as a result of a rapidly rising population through agricultural robotics, and to open new career opportunities beyond manual labor for previously rural farmers and future generations.

Our Team

Abhipsa Ujwal

Katelyn Provost

Lazuardi Rinaldi

Saikanam Siam

Zachary Moss

Project Advisor

Professor Joyelle Harris

Georgia Institute of Technology

School of Electrical and Computer Engineering

Our Progress

Currently, we have completed a two parts of the robot: a prototype of the rice seeding mechanism and plow, and a bluetooth-controlled movable robot chassis. Below is our progress throughout the Fall and Spring semester.

Seeder Mechanism V1

Seeder Mechanism V2

Robot Chassis

20200223_174450.mp4

20200223_171734.mp4

Current Progress

We are working on tweaking the robot chassis to make it more robust and be able to connect with the seeder module.

Recognition

Aug 20, 2019 — Admitted to the Idea2Prototype program and awarded a $500 grant

Dec 03, 2019 — Roborice was awarded 2nd Place for Fall 2019's Create-X Showcase

Feb 04, 2020 — Achieved semi-finalist position in the Inventure Prize competition

Future Goals

Due to current global situation, our timeline for the project has been extended. Yet, the timeline on the left reflects our short-term goals for the future of Roborice. As of now, we are currently in the application for Create-X Startup Launch.

Roborice Montage.MOV

Reflection

Abhipsa Ujwal

Roborice was a good opportunity to get acquainted with the various tools and makerspaces and Georgia Tech and learn to use them while working on an actual project. One of the major challenges for this project was definitely coordination, but setting goals and a schedule is helping to overcome this. Right now the project has several separate pieces, so the next steps we should take are combining these disparate parts and troubleshooting.

Katelyn Provost

I enjoy working with my team and on a project I feel is unique compared to what I’ve done before. We’ve made strides in learning new concepts or new ways to apply old practices. I have also had a great time competing and working with Dr. Harris. I felt there was a lack of punctuality and organization in the beginning, but we found a new way to schedule ourselves by better delegating responsibilities and sticking to the times we set for meetings and work. I know as we continue to take classes and acquire more skills we will improve Roborice, so long as we continue to adhere to a schedule and continually encourage each other.

Lazuardi Rinaldi

I’m really glad that everyone was cooperative and collaborative in the design process of creating prototypes, giving their best effort in learning to build something from scratch. The biggest challenge we had was scheduling times to work on the project as not everyone was free at the same time, but since we gain access of the Hive during the weekend, it enabled us to work on the project during the times we don’t have class. Our next steps to improve Roborice is to tweak and test its design to see how it performs in real world terrain.

Saikanam Siam

I enjoy working on things that has the potential to bring positive social change through technology, and Roborice intends to do exactly that. Although my work is more designated towards the software side, we are still in the iterative design process. It was fun for me to switch things up and work on the design and electrical side of things. Our next step in the project definitely has to be to improve upon the design we already have and combine the modular parts together to build a functioning bot.

Zachary Moss

Not many students can say that they worked on an innovative project at their own pace and freedom. I loved having the opportunity to build, design, and discover with my teammates in RoboRice. I believe that Introduction-to-Prototype enabled our team to reveal a solution to a dire problem going on the world. As I complete my freshman year, I can recall several difficulties that our team experienced: structure, communication, and sometimes, cooperation. I think that with a growth mindset and the relentless spirit of our team, we can enforce change and gain new support to not only improve the world, but to ourselves.

Page updated

Google Sites

Report abuse