Newton youth see ag technology in action

A bird and a plane were the comparison points for the Newton Talented and Gifted students who watched a drone take off at a recent workshop.

While there was plenty else to see and do at the Drone & Agricultural Technologies Workshop, held at the Newton Arboretum and Agnes Patterson Park, the two drones were the most eye-catching part of the workshop. Staff from the Ellsworth Community College Precision Agriculture Mobile Lab presented material, with NTAG teachers Sara Van Manen and Cori Latcham teaming with the Jasper County Farm Bureau’s Ag in the Classroom program.

Ellsworth College professor Kevin Butt gave the NTAG students a long briefing on drone dos and don’ts before displaying the flight and agricultural photography abilities of each vehicle.

“Some people think of drones as military weapons, so we call them UAVs or unmanned aerial vehicles,” Butt explained to the NTAG students. “There are still rules being developed by the government, so the safest thing we can do for now is just be out here in the open, away from buildings, houses and people.”

Butt pointed to some nearby power lines while listing some of the many potential hazards and pitfalls of flying a drone at Patterson Park. He then launched a black delta-shaped, finless “flying wing” simply by tossing it away from his body, and it made a few high circles above the park.

A harsh nose-first landing into a chain-link fence on the park’s soccer field punctuated the delicate nature of drone flight. Butt pointed out to the students how wind, moisture and other factors affect any farmer’s ability to control a drone.

A short, lower-altitude flight by a Phantom quadrocopter captivated the students event more. Not only did its four noisy propellers start up right in front of them, but the Phantom’s vertical ascent made the experience seem even closer to home.

Also featured at the workshop were GPS and other technology lessons, including an auto-steered golf cart with an automated crop spray boom on the front.

Butt said the most productive part of the workshop probably was simply exposing the students to agriculture and showing them why a farmer uses technology to keep feeding and fueling a growing population.

“What we wanted to show them is how technologically advanced farming has become,” Butt said. “When you think that Google is developing a driverless car and everyone thinks that is futuristic, yet the agricultural industry has had autosteering tractors for at least 10 years. No one seems to think that a lot of the modern technologies they use today were already being used in the agricultural industry long before that.”