Project Scouting: Hydroponics 02

Wednesday, we returned to the Hydroponics Center for a second visit. The director Joao quickly whipped up a meeting with a few staff members so we could sit down and talk more about Wellesley and the potential for collaboration. In addition to him, we spoke with one of the engineers there, a social scientist and an intern to ask them about their work and their ideas for the future. It started off a little slow since I think people were shy but then picked up pace as Mackenzie and I started seeding ideas and others built off of them.

It's one thing to talk about thoughts at a table but it's another thing to actually see them. Together, we gathered a list of potential topics to explore there and then they led us outside to show us the topics they talked about:

• Investigation of renewable, sustainable energy sources (Solar and/or Wind). 
• They have several large machines necessary in seed sorting/planting, soil mixing, irrigation regulation, and daily office functions
• The director is very interested in creating mechanism to plant seeds into boxes AND outside on the ground
• ESPECIALLY for tiny seeds (carrots, tomatoes etc)
• Waste of time because of caution necessary to plant one tiny seed at a time. AND Waste of seeds because they get dropped often
• Could be spread to small farmers if made from recyclable materials or materials that can be found for cheap in CV
• They are also interested in a way to collect rainwater (e.g. roof)

• This seems particularly relevant to most areas that we have been working with this summer, and could be a project of its own right for houses or other institutes, or even large farms
• One of the soil mixing machines is not able to gather material off the sides and cannot empty fully even after the process is over because of the location of the exit**
• This causes workers to have to mix and remove the remains manually which slows down process and makes the machine more of a complication
• Creation of smaller-scale and cost-efficient hydroponic system (and/or estufa) for individual and private farms.
• Viveiro (one of the rooms in the estufa) transformation, including separation and design of space for other uses
• The center is hoping to replace the current plastic coverings of their “estufas” (rather like greenhouses) with another sort of material that would not lead to as much heat retention → Perhaps better for UNICV students in chem/material engineering
• Interested in looking into different substrates (the material used in place of soil) and which sizes work best for which plants → Potential way to help UniCV chemistry and biology students, or ECAA students

There seems to be a lot of potential here. We now have our first "finished" (or sold) project write-up and got the go-ahead from Joao. We hope it all works out and maybe will bring it up to the engineering professors as a potential partner for their own classes.