US (NE): Columbus community college greenhouse has room for growth
The college's head of agriculture, Wade Hilker, said departments based in the North Education Center, mainly the agricultural and technical sciences, have made full use of the facility.
“Every department has had something to do with the construction or use in some aspect or another,” Hilker said.
Mechatronics instructor Allen Stenzel attended an industrial wireless systems training seminar held by Phoenix Contact, an international developer of industrial electronics, electrical engineering and automation. Based on what he learned, Stenzel decided a good project for his mechatronics capstone class would be to develop a system to monitor and control all the components of managing a greenhouse — temperature, air flow and water.
“It was learning how to step through a project from start to finish,” he said. “How to go from a conceptual idea to a product.”
He informed Phoenix Contact representatives about the project, and the company donated the electronics equipment. Last semester’s capstone class wired sensors and monitors in the greenhouse to a central control panel.
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