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Rural students in Georgia will have new robotics tools to bridge Gen X and Gen Alpha farmers thanks to Georgia Tech.
Credit: Amy Zock
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Can a robot bridge the gap between agriculture of Gen X and Gen Alpha in rural Georgia?
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Imagine a future where growing food is optimized through precision agriculture technologies, using computer science and artificial intelligence to grow higher yields, and monitor drought and moisture conditions made worse by human-caused climate change, while still meeting the food needs of a growing population.
That agriculture and tech future may not be so distant for Georgia. Agriculture companies incorporating robotics techniques in controlled environments are the fastest-growing sector of Georgia’s agribusiness, according to the state’s Department of Economic Development.
Todd Jones, a Republican state representative of south Forsyth who once was chair for K-12 appropriations, now chairs the Technology and Infrastructure Innovation Committee. He says his work has created more access for students in AI, agriculture and robotics by aiding in designating millions of the $14 billion Georgia state budget toward bridging computer science in rural Georgia. He was especially keen on doing this because in 2019, a new state law declared computer science would be a required course by 2025.
“We have a lot of rural parts that frankly don’t have a lot of STEM or computer science,” Jones told the Ledger-Enquirer.
A collaborative partnership between Jones and Georgia Tech created the Rural Computer Science Initiative, educating and training teachers across rural Georgia about computer science and robotics to train the workers of tomorrow in an interdisciplinary way.
This past fall, the associate director of school and engagement at Georgia Tech, Norman “Storm” Robinson III, and his team of students at Georgia Tech started sending a machine called Farmbot to dozens of rural schools across Georgia. It was equipped with modules to grow food in their own garden bed.
Georgia Tech’s approach is likened to IKEA: providing instructions on how to construct the Farmbot in raised soil beds. But unlike the massive Swedish furniture manufacturing company, they add virtual instruction with six to eight modules designed to “create motivation and interest in computer science,” Robinson said.
“This is an opportunity for students to learn how to do AI, to be creators of AI, to be controllers of AI, to understand what AI does,” Robinson said. “(Farmbot) builds up their computational skills, their computer science skills, data science skills, and things of that nature for schools that need local farming industry. It’s an interdisciplinary activity: maybe using geocaching, a math class could use it, the plant system designed by biology classes.”
Bainbridge High School received its Farmbot a few weeks ago, and Amy Zock, director of instructional innovative technology for Decatur County Schools, is thrilled.
“We put it right in front of the school and outside of the principal’s window so that students will see it everyday when they walk in,” Zock said.
Zock shares the cross-disciplinary excitement as Robsinson.
“(Farmbot) will be a combination of computer science engineering and and ag, because in order to train the kids will have to understand the concepts of ag,” she said. “Our computer science kids don’t know what’s a weed and what’s not a weed, and our athletes don’t know about the AI, so they’re going to have to work together to make this work.”
She added her gratitude for Georgia Tech bringing the bot and the modules to places outside of Atlanta.
“Georgia Tech made a commitment to be Georgia Tech and not Atlanta Tech,” she joked.
This issue of not training rural students is exactly what Jones set out to tackle.
“It sounds like a campaign slogan, but your birthplace should not determine your access and rigor,” Jones said. “Every child should have an opportunity no matter the county. You can’t dream it unless you’ve been exposed to it.”
Bainbridge High hasn’t had to pay for anything thanks to the funding from the appropriations Jones initiated years ago.
In the 2025 fiscal year, $2.15 million has been allocated to the Rural Computer Science program, and each of the Farmbots cost around $3,000, according to the Principal Research Associate at Georgia Tech. Leigh McCook.
Other high schools include:
- Ringgold High School
- Chattooga High Schoo
- Clinch County High School
- Dublin High School
- Cairo High School
- Jeff Davis High School
- Jones County College and Career Academy
- Bradwell Institute
- Lumpkin County High School
- Peach County High School
- Rabun County High School
- Seminole County Middle High School
- Tattnall County High School
- Thomas County Central High School
- Thomasville High School
- Twiggs County High School
- Saddle Ridge School
- Effingham College & Career Academy
Bot operations are a growing need in a changing climate
Marisa Gardner, an education and outreach coordinator within Robinson’s engagement team, said the need for students to be problem solvers runs deep and there can be different types of bot approaches even though it isn’t exactly what commercial farming today looks like.
“The lessons learned there are highly, highly transferable to what commercial farms are doing, the reliance on sensors and data-driven decision making,” Gardner said. “I think developing those skills will come back in high school, will come back in the reports, right precision irrigation, precision pesticide application, all those things are in the wheelhouse of smart ag these days, and with a farm bot, you’re able to really hone those.”
The bot can slice away weeds, use precision watering and soil moisture monitoring.
“(Farmbot) does soil moisture sensing,” she said. “You can also do some pilling with the rotary tool as well. So to kind of aerate the soil, rotate some of the nutrients there, and soil nutrient monitoring.”
If students want to go even greener, they can add solar panels to power the bot and add rain barrels to collect water for watering to do things “off the grid,” according to Gardner.
Precision farming and agricultural robotics is attractive because loss of agricultural land and a shifting climate are forcing farmers to be creative to improve productivity and efficiency. A study in April emphasized the importance of robotic automation in precision farming because of threats like climate change and a growing population.
Jones also thinks it’s important that Georgia families can continue practicing farming for generations to come.
“To go into tech doesn’t always mean Tesla or SpaceX, what about Agtech? You can stay true to what your family has been doing for 5 generations and change the yield perspective,” he said.
Jones said just a few weeks ago, he was in a six-hour meeting with the Department of Agriculture, University of Georgia and Georgia Tech, and Jones said the group posed the question: How do we take agtech and explode it?
Jones’ response to the Ledger-Enquirer: Rural Computer Science and programs such as Farmbot.
This story comes to GPB through a reporting partnership with Columbus Ledger-Enquirer.
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