Team: 46
School: Melrose High
Area of Science: Agriculture
Interim:
Project:
Our project is over the creation and evaluation of a small scale, home based, and family sized hydroponic and aquaculture system. This system is being designed to be easily accessible to the average user, and will help our local and area gardeners with a new and less water intensive way of growing foodstuffs for an average family. In order to plan and evaluate the system, we are also creating a NetLogo computer model of the project that shows how the different components of the system interact and are able to result in a sustainable ecosystem for food growth.
Plan:
The following steps are what we have planned for the completion of our project over the upcoming school year:
1- Research background information on hydroponics and aquaponics.
2 – Work with producers who have existing operating systems.
3 – Build a scale model of a system sized to our needs.
4 – Create a computer model in NetLogo that represents the variables possible.
5 – Make a full sized model that can be exhibited to local and area gardeners.
Progress:
We have completed our research, and have started and been successful with the creation of a hydroponic system of the size we have determined to be the most feasible. We are now in the process of adding the hydroponic aspects to the project. We will be visiting an existing system at a local college, and get more input from the experienced personnel there. This will allow us to complete the next step of our work.
We have begun the initial steps of our NetLogo programming, and we have utilized some design aspects for it based on pre-existing ‘Farming Simulation’ games. We expect this model to help in the decision making process for what plants should/could be used in our system.
Results:
Our expected results are to have a working model of a system that grows both plants and fish for an average family to be able to supplement their food and grocery needs throughout the year. Our computer model will help to make it more versatile for the average user and assist with making it personalized for each family that uses it.
Team Members:
Rylee Roberts
Nash Martin
Jaryn Bruce
Sorrell Allen
Asher Lunsford
Sponsoring Teacher: Alan Daugherty