Cast your People’s Choice Vote in the 2021 Agriculture Innovation Challenge!
The victorious team or challenger will win an iPad, $300 Cash, and a $200 Gift Card!!
Instructions:
- Find each Challenger’s project below. Each project has been assigned a key word in red.
- Text the keyword for your selected project to: 240WVMakes (240-986-2537) to cast your vote
- *Only one vote per phone number, duplicate or multiple votes will not be counted
- The number is for vote-tally only, questions should be directed to John Riggs at ECTC:
Agribusiness Systems
Agriculturalist Social Media Resource App
Philip Barbour High School: Shanondeli Snyder
*Text “App” to 240WVMakes (240-986-2537) to cast your People’s Choice vote for this project!
| Project/Idea Summary | Problem Statement | Solution Statement | Impact Statement |
| My project/idea is a social media and resources app for Farmers and other Agriculture fields to connect people, to help new farmers learn, and to hopefully bring more people into the field | The problem is there is a slow decline in the amount of farmers in America because the newer generation isn’t interested | My solution is a mobile app to appeal to and educate the newer generation through their phones and other devices |
The impact will potentially be a connection between farmers all over America and an influx of new farmers.
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Agriculture Social Media Platform
Petersburg High School: Cody Mitchell
*Text “Social” to 240WVMakes (240-986-2537) to cast your People’s Choice vote for this project!
| Project/Idea Summary | Problem Statement | Solution Statement | Impact Statement |
| I envision a social media platform that is strictly for agriculturists, one in which participants can communicate with each other, sharing ideas and experiences. On this platform the users would be able to filter the content they see through area filters, such as local, state, national, and global. To add to this the users would also be able to filter the sub-division of agriculture that they see, such as beef, dairy, swine, sheep, Ag. Education, high tunnels, etc. | When Covid19 hit America, it shut all our lives down, preventing us from communicating with other agriculturists at places such as dinner meetings, stock sales, and conventions. Because of this lack of communication, many were left in the dark, not being informed about new issues such as expected market shifts, new farming techniques, upcoming threats, etc. Agriculturists need a place/platform where they can share experiences, discuss issues, and ultimately make agriculture better. | I have devised a solution to this problem, one that will allow agriculturists everywhere to communicate, share ideas and innovations, predict market shifts, warn of up coming threats, etc. This solution is a social media platform centered strictly on agriculture and all of its subdivisions. This will bring to peoples’ fingertips a mountain of information that is relevant to their agricultural interests. News about major issues in agriculture will be transferred across the platform in seconds. | The potential impact that this social medial platform will have on agriculture is that it will bring agriculturists together, from all subdivisions of agriculture and all around the world, in communication over topics that affect them. This collaboration will excel agriculture and increase success by the sharing of experiences along with setbacks so others know to prepare for them. Also, this agricultural information is free, not costly like some of the conventions and expos that discuss advances in agriculture. |
Personal Cooling Device for Laborers
Buckhannon-Upshur High School: Jesika Goss, Rylee McCauley, Madi Stout
*Text “Cool” to 240WVMakes (240-986-2537) to cast your People’s Choice vote for this project!
| Project/Idea Summary | Problem Statement | Solution Statement | Impact Statement |
| Our innovative idea solves overheating and sweating. Many people who work outside need to wear long clothes in order to stay safe from overheating. Using our device will cool off workers and maybe be able to make them work longer hours. Hopefully we help save lives with this product. Hopefully we help more people cool down and work harder. | Blue collar workers need or use\get our product. Anyone who works outside, in construction or in a kitchen where it gets extremely hot and hard to work. Also anyone who works in the sun or outside in a hot area. We believe this product will really help people cool off outside and ink the hot areas in which they would be working. | Every year in the United States there is more then 1,300 deaths from heat. In the summer blue collar workers have to sit in the heat. Top heat related injuries are heat rash, heat exhaustion, heat cramps, and heat stroke. They skyrocket during the summer when its hot. We believe this product will reduce these numbers in the hot summer months. | We believe our Happy Fan will impact AG as a whole by saving many lives. This fan is going to be sold for a good price and going to be able to be available too many people who may not have the income for something that would be worth more. We hope to give many people this opportunity to be able to afford this. |
Animal Systems
Apple Shavings
Buckhannon-Upshur High School: Erica Burns, Hannah Humphre, Jenna Cutright
*Text “Apple” to 240WVMakes (240-986-2537) to cast your People’s Choice vote for this project!
| Project/Idea Summary | Problem Statement | Solution Statement | Impact Statement |
| Our project is about bunnies, bunnies are fluffy and cute and would be a good support animal to humans. Bunnies can be a inside or outside pet.you would have to by a few things for bunnies to feel welcomed.we would use cedar or pine shavings because the bunnies love to chew on it. | A lot of people like different shavings some people wouldn’t care they would find the cheapest one and buy it and it could be toxic for the bunnies. | It would be that apple shavings are safer pine or cedar shavings .because they cause issues . It would mess the bunnies teeth up and develope liver problems. | That our product will impact agriculture as a while by giving a safer alternative to cedar pine , and other harmful, toxic shaving for livestock. We want to use a safer shaving because rabbits and other animals love to chew on the cedar or pine shavings they could develope liver problems and other issues that cedar/pine shaving causes. |
Automatic Feeder for Zoos
Buckhannon-Upshur High School: Peyton Cutlip, Claire Coffman
*Text “Zoo” to 240WVMakes (240-986-2537) to cast your People’s Choice vote for this project!
| Project/Idea Summary | Problem Statement | Solution Statement | Impact Statement |
| Our product would be greatly needed if it was out in the real world. This automatic animal feeder has a remotely simple way of functioning. It would be plastic or metal, whichever you prefer. The tubes would run through and over the zoo and into their habitats. The food would be stored inn a temperature appropriate room and kept there until needed. It will be restored as needed also. | Our innovative idea helps solve many problems. The innovative idea that we came up with was automatic feeders in the zoo system. Many zookeepers get hurt during the year, about 60%, to be more specific while feeding animals. So our product will very efficiently reduce the number of zookeepers getting hurt. Thus is how our innovative idea solves many problems. | This product solves our product efficiently. The problem was that the zookeepers keep getting hurt while feeding the animals. We solved it by creating an automatic feeder for the exotic animals, so that the people at the zoo do not have to do it themselves and risk getting hurt. Th automatic feeder would use the pneumatic tube system. The programmer tells the tube when to go, this is how it will be automatic.This automatic feeder looks like plastic tubes or it could be metal and they come up from a storage room and over the habitats and then into their feeder spots. It would all be controlled from a programmer. It would all be set for a certain time. | Who exactly needs our product? Well many people could use this. The main people that this products is made for would be those that are zookeepers. Zookeepers are more likely to get hurt while feeding animals than other animal feeders. Zookeepers have to feed exotic animals, which makes it more dangerous. This us who needs this product the most. |
Bluetooth Creep Feeder
Philip Barbour High School: Alexis Ervin
*Text “Feed” to 240WVMakes (240-986-2537) to cast your People’s Choice vote for this project!
| Project/Idea Summary | Problem Statement | Solution Statement | Impact Statement |
| Bluetooth creep feeder. Makes it easier on the farmer and more efficient. | The problem is that it takes so much time for the farmer to feed. This will save time, make it safer for the farmer, tell him when it gets low on feed and needs refilled, helps beef your animals up by letting you control how much comes out. | The solution would be to have an app on your phone so you can control your feeder. You can choose when you want it turned on, how much feed comes out, you can turn it on and off on your time, if you want to check cows and want them all around it you can turn it on and off at certain times and go check on them and then you go back on your phone and turn it off. You can choose how much comes out because if you want to beef them up you can turn it on to how much you want to come out. It will also have a sensor to let you know when it’s low and it’ll notify you on your phone. |
Saves time, makes farms more efficient, makes it easier to check cattle, let’s you know when something is going wrong with it, when it is low on feed, it’ll save you time so you won’t have to check on it everyday to make sure there’s feed since it lets you know when it’s low and you control how much comes out.
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Digital Watering for Livestock
Philip Barbour High School: Alexander Williams
*Text “Water” to 240WVMakes (240-986-2537) to cast your People’s Choice vote for this project!
| Project/Idea Summary | Problem Statement | Solution Statement | Impact Statement |
| My idea is a digital water valve that can be used on a farm. It will be able to connect to an app or software or your mobile device that will allow a farmer to dispense water at specific times of day for specific amounts, it would also feature a camera that will allow the farmer to supervise the process and his animals. | The problem is that farmers never get time off especially if they are on a smaller scale because it can be very costly to hire people to do your farm chores. Also the previous solutions, the float valve system, presents the issue of constant refilling which can cause animals to drink too much especially on a hot day. | So this innovation will present a way to help with this issue by eliminating the need to be in person to water your animals. It also allows you to control the volume so there is no risk of your animals over drinking. |
The potential impact on agriculture is that daily farm chores will take little to no time making every farmers life easier and giving them more time to focus on expanding the horizons of agriculture.
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Hydraulic Beehive Lift
Philip Barbour High School: Jessica Findley, Alexander Williams
*Text “Beehive” to 240WVMakes (240-986-2537) to cast your People’s Choice vote for this project!
| Project/Idea Summary | Problem Statement | Solution Statement | Impact Statement |
| Our innovation idea is based on a hydraulic floor jack for bee boxes, this jack would potentially be able to lift and hold bee boxes for extended periods of time making hive checks a breeze for individuals who are smaller. | The problem that needs to be addressed would be the difficulty that women and our elders have when doing hive checks, this difficulty is due to the weight of the boxes. The typical box on a bee hive weighs around 80 lbs when full of honey, which can be quite challenging for smaller or frailer individuals. | Our solution to the problem is to design a hydraulic lift that would be based off of a floor jack that will allow for easy lifting of the bee boxes and easy application. The jack would have adjustable arms that could be fitted to any size and be able to pick up the boxes. The base would have wheels as well as locks so you can move them around and use the tool on multiple box stands. |
The potential impact that our innovation would have on agriculture would be making beekeeping more accessible for smaller and older individuals. Our innovation would not only prevent unnecessary injuries due to lifting heavy weights, but save these individuals time when doing hive checks.
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Sanitizer 3000
Buckhannon-Upshur High School: Emily Russell, Kari Gay, Isaac Kimble
*Text “Sanitizer” to 240WVMakes (240-986-2537) to cast your People’s Choice vote for this project!
| Project/Idea Summary | Problem Statement | Solution Statement | Impact Statement |
| There is a arm on the front of the machine that sprays disinfectant liquid around the room reaching further spots unable to be reached easily by human.There is also a door on the top where you can replace the disinfectant. It where make it thing run more smoothly especially when employees are low. | The sanitizer 3000 vet edition sanitizes the examine room instead of the vet techs. While this is going on it gives the vet techs more time to do other things. Cleaning is a simple task and the techs can be doing more things like assisting the vets which could help you get out the door much much faster. | This product was mainly designed for vet practices so that way they will not have to spend as much time sanitizing the tables, floor, and tools. This product can also be used in classrooms, especially during the corona pandemic. The sanitizer 3000 vet edition can also be used in nurses offices. The product will cut down time on having to sanitize every thing. | With the sanitizer 3000 more animals will be able to be seen. If you have ever tried to get your animal a visit to the vet you will know they are always booked up because they just don’t have enough time. Vet techs have to sanitize everything in between every visit. With this product they wont have to do that and can see more animals. |
Self Cleaning Chicken Coop
Buckhannon-Upshur High School: Tyler Loudin, Robert Grose
*Text “Coop” to 240WVMakes (240-986-2537) to cast your People’s Choice vote for this project!
| Project/Idea Summary | Problem Statement | Solution Statement | Impact Statement |
| Our invention will help farmers that raise chickens and don’t have a lot of time to clean the coop all the time. | Our product is directed to farmers to make their farming a little bit easier when they’re busy. How the product work is that I starts on the floor. It pushes the manure out out gather it up. | You can use the manure to grow your crops. Are product will help the farmer=s with the speed proses. And he can move more poop around. | Our product basically cleans and pushes out all the pee and poop out of the chickens coop for a healthy environment for the chickens, all you basically have to do it pick up the bucket and go dump it. |
Robotic Cattle Feeder
Buckhannon-Upshur High School: Ryli Marsh, Madisyn Lewis, Samuel Pringle
*Text “Feeder” to 240WVMakes (240-986-2537) to cast your People’s Choice vote for this project!
| Project/Idea Summary | Problem Statement | Solution Statement | Impact Statement |
| Robotic cattle feeder | The problems we are trying to solve is having to spend endless hours feeding your animals by hand | Our solution is to use a programmed robotic feeder that is ran through an app to help do the daily feedings around the farm | Our innovation can impact agriculture because it will give more time for farmers to work on other things around the farm, it could possibly prevent injuries |
Environmental & Natural Systems
Powerful Plant Protection
Barboursville Middle School: Kennedy Fisher, Xavier Keller
*Text “PPP” to 240WVMakes (240-986-2537) to cast your People’s Choice vote for this project!
| Project/Idea Summary | Problem Statement | Solution Statement | Impact Statement |
| The Powerful Plant Protection (PPP) is a product that can be used across small and large garden in West Virginia. Having a garden myself, small and large animals can become a nuisance even when you have protective barriers around your garden. The Powerful Plant Protection uses sound and lights to help protect the garden while keeping away those pesky creatures. The PPP, is a stake with a motion sensor light and aluminum sound. To run this, there is a small solar piece on top of the stake. After researching, deer and rabbit are not startled by light but are startled by sound, so an aluminum sheet is placed around the stake to cause an unfamiliar sound to scare the garden intruders. | Gardens can be affected by different types of animals even when there are barriers to keep the animals at bay. You can lose the majority of your crops in one evening because of the intruders. | In order to protect crops and being environmentally friendly, light and sound can be used to scare away unwanted animals to protect your precious crops. Flashing sensor lights can distract nocturnal animals, while vibration from the aluminum sheet can scare animals throughout the day. This can be powered by a small solar piece on top of the stake. | Having a garden takes time and money. From the prepping of the land, planting, to the weeding, caring, watering, nurturing, etc. and this can all be ruined in one evening or day by pesky creatures. We can help our farmers and gardeners by creating a light and sound barrier system to improve the agriculture experience. |
The Hay Hat
Barboursville Middle School: Gabriella Robertson, Peyton Perkins
*Text “Hay” to 240WVMakes (240-986-2537) to cast your People’s Choice vote for this project!
| Project/Idea Summary | Problem Statement | Solution Statement | Impact Statement |
| A plastic shield called a hay hat to keep rain and precipitation from ruining hay that farmers work so hard to make. It has gutter-like systems to move the rain away from the hay. It also has two stakes attached to keep it down during heavy winds in strong storms. It is reusable and can be used multiple years. | When it rains, the hay that has been put into bales in a field are ruined. The water soaks into them and can spoil and rot up to half of the hay that farmers make. They lose lots of valuable time, money, and use up a lot of diesel fuel which can be harmful to the environment. The farmers are also left with less hay to feed their animals. | The hay hat is a perfect solution that doesn’t take too much time or money to make, and is reusable. It is a curved, strong, plastic shield in the shape of a half circle that fits on top of the hay. It has stakes that go into the hay bale to keep it attached during strong winds. It also has two gutter-like systems that make the water flow off the shield away from the hay bale. | This hay hat has the ability to impact agriculture, because farmers will now be able to bale their hay and leave it out without worrying about it spoiling due to rain. Farmers all over the world could use this invention to save them from losing some of their hay, money, and lots of their time. |
Environmental & Natural Resources Management Systems
GPS Broadhead Tracker
Buckhannon-Upshur High School: Tyler Loudin, Robert Grose
*Text “GPS” to 240WVMakes (240-986-2537) to cast your People’s Choice vote for this project!
| Project/Idea Summary | Problem Statement | Solution Statement | Impact Statement |
| It is a gps that clips on the end of a broad head and falls off once it makes entry so you can track your animals | You get a bad hit and run out of blood and there is know way to find the animal | You can look at your gps tracker and maybe get a another shot off at the animal or don’t have to track the animal | There would be less wounded animals or dead animals laying in the woods |
Pest Control Drone
Buckhannon-Upshur High School: Autumn Curtis, McKenna Riley, Hannah House, et al
*Text “Drone” to 240WVMakes (240-986-2537) to cast your People’s Choice vote for this project!
| Project/Idea Summary | Problem Statement | Solution Statement | Impact Statement |
| Our idea controls the pest in big national forests. Insets such as many species of bark beetles will be effected by our product. Our product is a drone that contains dried/powdered animal manure that is contained in a box on top of the drone which is fed through four tubes that shoots the powder through the tree canopies spreading the powder on the bark of the trees killing the bark beetles. In one year over 18,000 acres of trees die out of 20,000 acres of healthy national forests, our idea is to make an automated drone. This drone would be bright yellow, plastic, lightweight, and have tubes to go into the canopy. It would be used by gps and would be controlled by a control center within the main building within the forest. Once the drone would empty their manure it would return to the main building to the refilling station. There, the drone will lowers into its assigned loading area for a refill and a quick charge to finish the job. Once night fall hits, or whenever the manager of the control center chooses, the drones will return to their loading areas, refill their boxes, turn off, and charge until they where ready to work again. | In one year over 18,000 acres of trees die out of 20,000 acres in healthy forests. Our product is a automated drone that would spread a special powder of manure to kill the bugs that live in the bark of trees (Bark Beetles) | This drone would be bright yellow, plastic, lightweight, and have tubes to go into the canopy. It would be used by gps and would be controlled by a control center. Once the drone would empty their manure it would return to the main building to the refilling station. There, the drone will lowers into its assigned loading area for a refill and a quick charge to finish the job. Once night fall hits, or whenever the manager of the control center chooses, the drones will return to their loading areas, turn off, and charge until they where ready to work again. | Our drone will effect Agriculture as a whole by decreasing the beetle population and saving trees in National Forest and expanding growth for the wildlife. This product could also save many kind of crops from bugs which would help farms expand and make more money in the long run. Also, the costs of replacement parts would be inexpensive on save more money towards equipment for other things. |
Velcro Alternative
Buckhannon-Upshur High School: Isaiah Robinson, Dakota Konger, Josh Smith
*Text “Velcro” to 240WVMakes (240-986-2537) to cast your People’s Choice vote for this project!
| Project/Idea Summary | Problem Statement | Solution Statement | Impact Statement |
| How will this impact the FFA community and a hole? Let say your family is watching a movie and you trying to get the kid to go to sleep are invention help you stay quiet and not wake the kids up and not disturb everyone wale watching the movie. Noisy Velcro straps and that scares away animals when hunting and bring attention to you when you don’t want it and can cause trouble when you don’t want it. | What people we would say that needs this? Some people wear pants and shorts that have Velcro keeping the pockets closed that can ruin other cloths that you put in the wash. Hunters we would say needs this to because they don’t want to scare away the animals away and miss the game. | How dose this love every day problems with Velcro. Velcro straps and that scares away animals when hunting and bring attention to you when you don’t want it and can cause trouble when you don’t want it. The wear and tear that Velcro straps can cause after along use. Velcro can tear up some cloths when you go to put them in to you pocket. | Another question that we have is how are product works and how would you use that in every day life. Let say your family is watching a movie and you trying to get the kid to go to sleep are invention help you stay quiet and not wake the kids up and not disturb everyone wale watching the movie. |
Hunter Safety Vest for Pets
Buckhannon-Upshur High School: Braydon Lloyd, Brock McCartney, Jake Tenney
*Text “Vest” to 240WVMakes (240-986-2537) to cast your People’s Choice vote for this project!
| Project/Idea Summary | Problem Statement | Solution Statement | Impact Statement |
| We made a orange vest for a pet deer. It help it so that hunters will not kill your pet deer in deer season and so people will see it better so they don’t run it over with their vehicle. It keeps your pet deer warm in the winter so it don’t freeze to death. | Pet deer are geting shot. And that makes people sad. People like to feed pet deer in their backyard. With the orange vest hunters will not shot them. | Put the vest on you pet deer don’t get hurt or killed. | No more dead pet deer. It will save your deer hopefully, and not get them shot. |
Environmental & Technical Systems
Bamboo Garden Poles
Philip Barbour High School: James P. Swift
*Text “Bamboo” to 240WVMakes (240-986-2537) to cast your People’s Choice vote for this project!
| Project/Idea Summary | Problem Statement | Solution Statement | Impact Statement |
| My idea is to have bamboo garden poles. In the bamboo garden poles you would put in an eco-friendly mesh bag that has 100 Ladybug eggs. The problem that this will help with is the population of aphids and other pests in gardens. The lady bugs eat the aphids and other pests after they hatch. | The problem is that the aphid population in a persons garden is astronomical.They will eat at your garden without you even knowing. You wouldn’t even notice until it was too late. They don’t even take the time to mate. All they do is clone themselves and devour your garden. | My solution for this is that the ladybugs will eat away at the aphids. Ladybugs will make your garden look greener and more plentiful. | The impact on agriculture is that the plants in your garden look more plentiful. You will have more crops and less pests. |
Power Structural & Technical Systems
Farming Former Mining Land with Drones
*Text “Farming” to 240WVMakes (240-986-2537) to cast your People’s Choice vote for this project!
Barboursville Middle School: Madeline Chapman, Rupert Clark, Kalen Brightwell
| Project/Idea Summary | Problem Statement | Solution Statement | Impact Statement |
| Our entry covers using surface mined hilltops as farmland, and using drones to plant and maintain crops on said hills. | The problem we are addressing is that farmland is limited in West Virginia. | We came up with the solution to this problem of using surface mined hills as farmland. | The impact of our idea is that it could greatly boost West Virginia’s agriculture industry and economy. |
Suntacts
Buckhannon-Upshur High School: Mckinley Bonnett, Devin Phillips, Isabella Dahman
*Text “Sun” to 240WVMakes (240-986-2537) to cast your People’s Choice vote for this project!
| Project/Idea Summary | Problem Statement | Solution Statement | Impact Statement |
| Our Innovative idea is something we call “ Suntacts”. Suntacts are a creative and different way to solve a simple problem that affects many. Our idea is a type of contacts that have the same technology as transitioning glasses or sun glasses. When you are outside you would be wearing “sunglasses” but in your eyes. Suntacts would work the same as transitioning glasses so when your outside they are protecting your eyes from the sun. Then transition to regular sun glasses. | The issue we are trying to solve is the blurriness that comes with wearing regular contacts, and sunglasses at the same time. The other issue being as an agricultural worker you should be wearing safety glasses with some of you’re jobs and how are you suppose to wear contacts , sunglasses and safety glasses all at the same time. The third problem being sunglasses falling off your face. Suntacts will solve all of these issuses. | Suntacts, will put the end the previously talked about issue because it will be a contact you put in your eye every morning like a regular contact. The Suntact will transition with the light your eyes receive protecting them from UV rays. Without the worry of them falling off your face or making things around you blurry ,by wearing multiple layers of eye wear. | The impact this will have on the Ag world , as well as mean other fields of work. These form of eye protection will keep people losing sunglasses when on the job site. It will also keep accidents from happening since the suntacts will not have a glare. This will also help people who work outside who need sunglasses but also need specific form of safety glasses, this will allow them to be able to have on sunglasses and their safety glasses. |