Microsoft FarmBeats for Students - Grove Smart Agricultural Kit

Classroom-ready hardware kits with all the hardware needed for Microsoft FarmBeats for Students lessons.

 Learn about data-driven farming using AI, Machine learning and IoT with free curated curriculums and lessons from Microsoft. Students can immerse themselves with hands-on activities and build a garden monitoring system with this kit.

Features

• Grove Smart Agriculture Kit w/o Raspberry Pi 4 for Microsoft FarmBeats
• Offers new tools for STEM Education learners
• Easy-to-use and low-cost hardware kit
• Provides real-time data collection
• Build your own Machine Learning models
• Introduce Microsoft responsible AI framework

Agriculture is an industry essential to the continuation of human life and the development of civilization. To ensure the sustainability of agriculture involves a scientific means and intellectual investment. Education is the key to cultivate intellectuals. To integrate agriculture with technology and education is what we need to do.

What is FarmBeats for Students?

Microsoft FarmBeats for Students is an interactive STEM education program, that provides teachers and students with tools to explore big data, artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning and IoT technologies. 

FarmBeats for Students Offers Data-driven Farming Experience

The program combines an affordable hardware kit with curriculum and activities designed to give students hands-on experience in applying precision agriculture techniques to food production. Using an array of sensors, students stream and analyze data in Excel.

The FarmBeats for Students Makes Modern Tools Approachable for Today's Learners.

Today's farms are beginning to look a lot more like smart cities. Growers are using modern techniques like sensors, computer vision, and artificial intelligence to acquire a more complete view of their crops. These methods help them make better decisions, discover inefficiencies, and unlock new insights into improving food production. Seeed is honored and pleased to collaborate with Microsoft in the FarmBeats for Students Program (FBFS), which brings these modern tools into the hands of today's learners.

How This Kit Works with Software to Realize Data-Driven Farming

With the combination of software, hardware kit, and curricula resources, the students get a hands-on and immersive experience in the process of learning, to learn about sensor technology, how the changes of data collected from different sensors affect the growth of the crops; thus, they understand soil condition and crop health, etc., and make better decisions with data-driven insights.

To Collect Data

This Grove Smart Agriculture Kit is a hardware kit that consists of an array of multiple sensors measuring soil temperature, soil moisture, sunlight, and air temperature & humidity and other parameters that are crucial for plant growth. With a relay, you can also configure the hardware kit with other hardware modules, to further extend the function from monitoring to controlling such as turn on/off the switch for irrigation or turn on/off the lighting.

Connect to Excel Data Streamer

Students assemble a Raspberry Pi equipped with atmospheric and environmental sensors to understand their soil's health and the environmental parameters that affect plant growth, then to analyze the data, and make decisions. The student-built IoT devices connect to custom Excel workbooks that collect real-time data using Excel's Data Streamer. They can see the visualized data and further analyze it, thus they can gain insights and make data-driven decisions for their crops.

Understand and Build AI Machine Learning Models

At the same time, this hands-on experience enables students to learn about AI, Machine learning, data science, and the Internet of Things (IoT) by building a garden monitoring system. Students are introduced to building their own Machine Learning models. They build, train, and apply machine learning models to predict nutrient deficiencies in their plants, and identify pests in their garden. There are activities where students set up an agent and others where they work with a curated big data set. The learning progression enables students to easily see the connections between these modern agriculture tools and the opportunities they afford.

Plus, this FarmBeats for Students program ends by introducing a responsible AI framework, engaging students with some of the social and ethical challenges raised by this new technology.

(student learning with FarmBeast for Students in the garden)     

Application

Combined with software and curriculum & resources, this kit is highly suitable for use in different scenarios, no matter in the classroom, at home, at maker spaces/ fab labs or through distance learning courses:

• School garden monitoring
• Home garden monitoring
• Distance teaching /learning
• Online courses
• Hobby and DIY projects  

Specification

Gross weight (incl. package) 440.0 Gram

Dimensions (incl. package) 200 x 130 x 75 MM

Part List