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Students Create Digital Green Thumbs To Nurture Vegetables in Automated Greenhouses Byron Spice
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Stephanie Rosenthal inspects radish and lettuce plants after removing them from an automated greenhouse in Newell-Simon Hall. Student teams developed AI programs to control water, light and humidity to nurture the plants.
Nidhi Jain has never had much luck growing plants. I ve tried to work with plants, but they didn t want to work with me, said the senior computer science major from California. So I ve stuck to succulents.
Green thumb or no, this fall Jain and her classmates in the School of Computer Science s Autonomous Agents course applied their knowledge of artificial intelligence, including machine learning and computer vision, to grow lettuces and radishes in small, automated greenhouses. Without ever seeing or touching their plants in person, they worked in groups of three to nurture their sprouts, writing programs that made all of th