For their Greenhouse Drones project, Dutch students Bram Sanders, Chris Ramsey, Lucien Fesselet and Will Simmonds have won the ‘Wij Inholland’ Award 2016. The Aeronautical Engineering students won the trophy and a check for 2,000 euros.
Greenhouse Drones
The students from Delft developed a drone to check plants in greenhouses for diseases. Lucien: "Our drone has only one camera and can check the entire greenhouse in no time." Together with Bram, Chris and Will he invented the drone after they found that producers had great difficulty monitoring the health of their many thousands of plants. "Five to 25 percent of the plants are lost through diseases, bacteria, fungi, damage and other causes," says Lucien.
Big plans for the future
"We are very pleased that we now have the opportunity to take our project further. There are of course a lot of costs associated with a drone. I hope that this inspires our team to keep going," says Will. He has big plans for the future and wants to develop more of these engineering projects together with his teammates. According to Lucien, Inholland university of applied sciences played a major role in the development of the drone and the team has become more close-knit as a result. "Inholland not only offered us financial support, but also brought us into contact with growers at the start of our project."
For more information:
wijinholland.nl