Completion Date

6-2017

Advisor(s)

Bo Liu

Abstract

The Cal Poly agBOT team researched, designed, and built a Remote Controlled tractor to compete in Gerrish Farms’ agBOT Seeding Challenge 2017. The tractor was procured from the BioResource and Agricultural Engineering department. The tractor served as the base unit, with supporting components mounted onto it. Steering the tractor was accomplished with a auxiliary hydraulic motor mounted to the steering wheel. Throttle and choke were controlled by servo and linear actuator respectively. Both the three point hitch and PowerTakeoff was controlled by linear actuators. All controls were executed by an arduino microcontroller, which was equipped with a remote control. The steering was equipped with a potentiometer for steering feedback and travel direction of the tractor. The corn seeder attached to the three point was equipped with two hoppers, seed sensors, a seed rate motor, and two vacuums to switch between different seed varieties. The tractor effectively plants corn via remote control and competed on June 24th, 2017 at Gerrish Farms, Rockville, Indiana. The days leading up to the event, the tractor was loaded onto a trailer. Three students rented a truck, loaded it up with camping equipment, and hauled the Cal Poly agBOT to Indiana in ~47hrs, with a single 5hr stop to rest. The students and tractor arrived safely, unpacked, and tested the tractor at Gerrish Farms. The day before the competition, Gerrish Farms held an expo for the surrounding community and guests. Many people from all ages and expertise walked around and were thoroughly interested in the Cal Poly teams efforts. The students competed and turned back to California. We placed 2nd in our competition, bringing home $15,000 to support next years agBOT team.

Copyright

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

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