Greener Acres

By Chelsea Kalberloh Jackson

“These are the best tomatoes I’ve had since home,” says Merjem Mededovic (BME 3rd year), reaching for a cluster of tiny crimson spheres dangling from a blossom-studded tomato plant in UFarmIIT. Growing up in urban Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, she looked forward to weekends when she could work in her grandfather’s garden on the outskirts of the city. “As a biomedical engineering student, I appreciate the importance of being active and eating right, and also helping Earth. Farming touches so many points that are part of a sustainable life.”

For the past six years, Illinois Tech students have worked a 5,000-square-foot space comprising UFarmIIT, an urban farm located in The Quad on Mies Campus. UFarmIIT began as a project of a landscape architecture elective in 2012, led by Rodger Cooley, an adjunct assistant professor of architecture in the landscape architecture program who also works in urban food system planning and policy. The project grew into a collaboration with both the student group Engineers for a Sustainable World and a first-year architecture studio course, in which students designed and installed the multipurpose fence. In 2013 UFarmIIT became an Interprofessional Projects (IPRO) Program course, with spinoffs including an aquaponics research project on campus. Today UFarmIIT is an official student group, and the farm itself has evolved to become a test bed for sustainable urban farming with a tech edge.

Beginning last year, Illinois Tech’s Wanger Institute for Sustainable Energy Research (WISER) began to invest in the technology infrastructure of UFarmIIT, aiding students in acquiring solar panels and controllers that have enabled the farm to operate completely off the grid.

“The goal is to provide a valuable, practical experience for Illinois Tech students,” says Hamid Arastoopour, director of WISER. “The challenge is to develop a completely automated, remotely controlled farm that uses renewable energy, creates no waste, minimizes water consumption, and provides safe and reliable food products. In doing so, the farm will serve as an economically feasible carbon-removal process for urban areas.”


UFarmIIT: How It Works

From Pipe to Plant

Two separate pipes carrying water and wiring are buried in trenches spanning the length of the beds.

Sensors & Control Panels

Sensors and Control Panels

Every third bed has a control panel with sensors that are connected to a central box in the shed and operated remotely.

Water Gauge

Water Gauge

Water travels via hoses from a water pump with a gauge that receives messages from the control panel about the moisture level of the soil.

Shed

Shed

UFarmIIT students designed and built the shed, which houses a Raspberry Pi-based controller that communicates with the sensors and control panels, and turns water on and off. Students involved in the Center for Smart Grid Applications and Research (CSMART) coded the controller. “How much pressure do we need to take the water from the pump to the beds? What are the fluid dynamics involved? Students solved all of those problems,” says Mededovic, outgoing president of UFarmIIT.

Solar Panels

Solar Panels

WISER coordinated installation of the solar panels, which collect enough energy to power the entire farm: the controller and other mechanics, plus an outlet for students to play music. The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers #134 donated a charge controller, four 250W Sharp solar modules, other electrical equipment, and all labor required to complete the solar system installation. “We used to have to plug into nearby buildings, but now we’re completely independent,” Mededovic says.

Compost and Vermi-Compost

Compost and Vermi-Compost

UFarmIIT works with Sodexo and the on-campus coffee shop Global Grounds to collect compostable food items and coffee grounds, respectively. The food items are used in worm (vermi-compost) beds, and the coffee grounds are used to grow mushrooms indoors in the Facilities Building.

Fruit and Vegetables

Fruit and Vegetables

Some UFarmIIT participants sell their produce on campus, and any remaining harvest is donated to the nearby St. James Food Pantry or offered to faculty and staff on a first-come, first-picked basis.

 

Hoop House

Hoop House

Students have reported harvesting produce from the unheated hoop house as late as January.

 

Farm Wall

Farm Wall

First-year architecture students designed and built the farm wall, which includes features that are at once decorative and functional, such as pockets for growing herbs.

Research

A new team of Illinois Tech faculty from WISER, the Institute for Food Safety and Health, Armour College of Engineering, the College of Architecture, College of Science, and Stuart School of Business has developed large proposals to conduct research that includes both expansion of the current UFarmIIT and creation of indoor vertical farming at Illinois Tech.

Community Outreach

Hamid Arastoopour says Illinois Tech plans to develop rigorous outreach activities to educate people from surrounding and outlying neighborhoods about urban farming and the potential to produce food sufficient to meet the needs of the people, and, in turn, bring jobs, economic growth, and safety to the community.