Winter and Spring 2017 - Dkar, Botswana

Stephanie Lew, fourth year undergraduate student, Environmental Science & Management. D-Lab Involvement: Student in the Winter 2017 Global Poverty Seminar  and in Spring 2017 D-Lab II

Alex Wilder, fourth year undergraduate student, Biological Systems Engineering. D-Lab Involvement: Student in Spring 2017 D-Lab II

Description

D-Lab students Stephanie Lew and Alex Wilder received Blum and PIET funding to travel to Dkar in Summer 2016 and execute their project. The current process for plowing and plant propagation is not sustainable and very labor intensive. Additionally, the current plowing device is no longer subsidized in the Dkar community. Thus a prototype precision planter was created to move agricultural practices to align with the Conservation Farming Movement and address these issues. The project addressed challenges such as devising a mechanism to drop off a fixed volume of fertilizer and the further control on this volume based upon the seed to be planted and devising a mechanism to drop a selected quantity and size of seed to be planted. Technical support was required for further development of the prototype. Additionally, the students engaged in discussion and shared ideas with technical community members whom advise around fertilizer and seed dispersal mechanisms.

Read journal entries 

Read documentation

Read business model 

Read final report

Photos