The modern farm is a technological marvel, from smart tractors to genetically modified organisms (GMOs), along withchemical pesticides and fertilizer. Farms today have continuously increased production by utilizing these varioustechniques. Many farms on the east coast of North America are growing dent or field corn while also rotating cropsbetween soybeans of various types and winter wheat. These crops have become symbiotic in nature due to the need forspecific soil nutrients of the crops and the practice of no till farming. More recently, schools with farm programs havestarted researching the use of drone technologies and multispectral analysis as a means to reduce chemical usage therebysaving farmers annual chemical costs. This paper investigates the use of drones in capstone projects for undergraduateengineering and computer science programs. Undergraduate capstone projects usually require a design and build elementto satisfy ABET accreditation requirements. Therefore, the students needed to design and build an airframe capable ofsurveying farms with a multispectral camera. In the course of the aircraft design process it was discovered that the studentsneeded to have a broader understanding of federal regulations, experimentation, and a robust understanding of how thedrones and data would be used to benefit a typical farm. In addition, we look at the results obtained and discuss theproblems associated with making the data and analysis accessible to the farmers who participated in our study. In theprocess we also discovered other potential uses for the images we created.
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