By: Alli Sweigard, VISTA F3 Communications Coordinator
Over 60 students and industry professionals came together for the “Hack the Valley” workshop at the University of California, Merced on Wednesday, March 13. Hosted by F3 Innovate and the Valley Institute for Sustainability, Technology & Agriculture (VISTA), the event featured guests including Daniel Sabzehzar and Phoenix Skeahan, Founders of Tesserakt Ventures, Priscilla Koepke, Co-Founder of Vesper AI, Danny Bernstein, Investor at HawkTower, and Dr. Guilherme De Moura Araujo, Software Engineer from farm-ng.
Focused on teaching students how to code the farm-ng amiga robot, the workshop offered hands-on experience in both autonomous and manual driving modes. Dr. Guilherme led a quick tutorial before students divided into three groups to work with the amiga robots outside. Under the guidance of VISTA team members Arav Gupta and Adrian Buitron Bouda, two groups explored manual control while Dr. Gui led the autonomous group.Danny Bernstein expressed his enthusiasm for the innovation potential at UC Merced, stating, “this is a particularly amazing place to innovate and to commercialize because I think you’re going to try to solve different problems here.” He further emphasized his belief in the region’s potential by adding, “that’s why I left Microsoft to invest here. I am a true believer in the potential of this area”.
Priscilla Koepke echoed Bernstein’s sentiments, highlighting the region’s unique opportunities for technological advancement. “I couldn’t be more excited about the ecosystem that’s being built here to address issues like climate resiliency,” she remarked. Koepke also emphasized the impact of the students’ work, stating, “The work that you’re doing today has the ability to impact the food security of our country and not only here in the Central Valley, but globally.
“Dr. Gui, in his remarks, stressed the importance of practice in mastering coding skills. “I was really passionate about it and I really put in the time and effort to learn,” he said, adding, “so the more you practice the more you learn.” He also praised farm-ng’s work saying, “It’s the only company that has open source code examples to show you how to hack the robot and how to get data from the robot”.
The event concluded with a raffle contest, offering students the chance to win tech prizes for their participation. Attendees enjoyed tacos as they reflected on the successful event and with newfound skills and inspiration, UC Merced students are poised to make significant contributions to the field of farming robotics and beyond.