Grant County 4-H hopes to defend legacy at SeaPerch Challenge

By Rebekah Hall
U of A System Division of Agriculture

SHERIDAN, Ark. — PVC pipe, pool noodles, zip ties, 12-volt batteries: these are just a few of the supplies that Arkansas 4-H members are using to build remotely operated vehicles for the upcoming Arkansas SeaPerch Challenge, an underwater robotics competition.

HANDS-ON LEARNING — Brad McGinley, Grant County extension staff chair for the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture and director of the Arkansas SeaPerch Challenge, helps students attach 3-D printed parts to their remotely operated vehicles, or ROVs. Teams will steer their robots through underwater challenge and obstacle courses at the SeaPerch Challenge on March 1. (Division of Agriculture photo.)

The competition is hosted by Arkansas 4-H, part of the Cooperative Extension Service, and the Electric Cooperatives of Arkansas. Participants work within teams to construct remotely operated vehicles, or ROVs, and then steer them through underwater obstacle and challenge courses designed to mimic undersea exploration or space missions.

Brad McGinley, Grant County extension staff chair for the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture and director of the Arkansas SeaPerch Challenge, said the program prepares participants for real-world challenges.  

“SeaPerch is based on the engineering design process, so it’s about a continual process of improvement,” McGinley said. “You develop a prototype of your ROV, we build it, we test it and we figure out what’s wrong with it. Then we improve it, then we test it again. It’s the same process that an engineer goes through — that’s what we’re trying to do.”

In Sheridan, Arkansas, members of the Grant County 4-H program, as well as students at Sheridan intermediate, middle and high schools, began preparing for the SeaPerch Challenge in October 2023. The competition is scheduled to be held March 1 at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, and the overall winning junior, senior and open teams will compete at the International SeaPerch Challenge at the University of Maryland in May.

Since Arkansas 4-H began participating in the SeaPerch Challenge in 2016, a team from the Grant County 4-H program has won first place every year and advanced to the international competition.

McGinley said that the most significant impact the program has had on participants is in critical thinking skills and problem-solving.

“This is not a video game,” McGinley said. “I think the first thing they realize whenever they build their ROV and put it in the water is that it’s not as easy as it looks. You have to have a lot of trial and error, some ‘stick-to-it-iveness,’ to say, ‘Hey, I’m going to stick this out.’ Things are going to go wrong, and you’ve got to realize that it’s okay. It happens right before you go into the competition, it happens during the competition, and you need to be able to say, ‘How can I quickly solve this problem to the best of my ability?’”

Serena McGinley, a fifth-grade teacher at Sheridan Intermediate School and a 4-H and SeaPerch sponsor, said the program has equipped her students with many important skills.

“SeaPerch has impacted my students in so many ways over the years,” she said. “They learn teamwork, how to use tools, how to problem solve, communication skills and so much more. These skills are not just ‘SeaPerch skills,’ but life skills.

“I have seen students find their passion for engineering in the program,” McGinley said. “My students gain a confidence that can only come from accomplishing a task from the ground up. SeaPerch is so much more than a competition — it is learning how to solve a problem in the most efficient way and communicating that information to others.”  

Practice makes perfect

On a sunny afternoon in late January, Grant County 4-H members and Sheridan Middle School students gathered at the home of Beverly Wells, a former Sheridan School Board member, who lets the SeaPerch students use her outdoor pool to practice with their ROVs.

Brad McGinley said Wells’s generosity has been critical to the success of the SeaPerch program in Grant County.

“It’s a godsend that we have this,” he said. “She’s been so generous to allow us to come over here and basically take her pool over for several months. Before, we had an indoor pool that we were able to use, but they closed that pool down, and this is the only one we have access to locally. If we didn’t have it, we would not be nearly as successful. She plays a big role in that.”

Students clustered in their teams around the pool, adding new 3-D printed parts to their ROVs and testing their speed in the water.

“Today they’re working on getting their ROVs to be neutrally buoyant, which means they don’t float, and they don’t sink,” McGinley said. “That way they can just hover there under the water while they’re working, so that takes some trial and error. Inevitably, there may be a propeller that falls off the first time — things happen that we have to work out the kinks with.”

Nearby, fifth grade students and high school students worked in the classroom at Sheridan Intermediate School on their technical design reports. SeaPerch participants are also judged on these reports, where they document the construction and engineering design process for their robots.

Fifth graders Abigail Martin and Jackson Knight said their first year participating in the program has been a learning experience.

“It’s been fun and interesting,” Martin said.

“It’s way different than I thought it was going to be,” Knight said. “I wasn’t thinking PVC pipe, I was thinking a full-on robot, but it’s still fun.”

Martin said her favorite part has been going to the pool and testing their robot, where they learned they needed to add more buoyancy. Knight said he has enjoyed working on the obstacle courses — during their last practice, they were able to use their ROV to open an “elevator” door on the underwater challenge course.

“Right now, I’m working on adding some graphs to our technical design report,” Knight said. “These are our speeds so far. Our fastest has been 11 seconds to go from one side of the pool and back.”

At another cluster of desks, fifth graders Kayden Bosley, Ryder Maines, Isabella Klinedinst and Adalyn Thornton collaborated on their ROV, whom they’ve named Scuba Steve. Bosley said they have had to make a few adjustments to the robot’s weight.

“We took off the lining so it would be lighter,” Bosley said. “Me and Ryder had a little trouble once we got to the far end of the pool because we couldn’t see through all the water, so we might need something bright at the front to help.”

“We’re trying to make it creative and unique,” Klinedinst said.

Across the hall, high school students worked together on their technical design reports.

Gavin McGinley, whose parents are Brad and Serena, and his teammate Callen Shaw have designed their robot from the ground up, including some 3-D printed parts.

“I’m thinking about making a foldable, 3-D printed hinge, but this is just our first thought,” McGinley said, gesturing towards their robot. “I made all these motor houses from scratch, so they’re all positioned in a really good spot.”

“They’re all of our own design,” Shaw said. “Everything here was built from scratch. We know there are all sorts of sites you can go to with plans, but we designed these.”

This is Shaw’s second year participating in SeaPerch, and McGinley’s fifth year.

“I like it because it’s fun,” McGinley said. “I get to hang out with my friends, and I like robotics.”

“I like being able to work as a team and prove our accomplishments that we made, overcoming challenges,” Shaw said. “We’re working on our report right now. I enjoy seeing how our ROV changes from where we started to where we end up, that’s one of my favorite parts about it.”

“It’s a little funky right now when it drives, but hopefully we’ll work all the kinks out,” McGinley said.

For more information about the Arkansas 4-H SeaPerch Challenge, visit 4h.uada.edu. To learn more about the SeaPerch program, visit seaperch.org/about. 

To learn about extension programs in Arkansas, contact your local Cooperative Extension Service agent or visit www.uaex.uada.edu. Follow us on X and Instagram at @AR_Extension. To learn more about Division of Agriculture research, visit the Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station website: https://aaes.uada.edu. Follow on X at @ArkAgResearch. To learn more about the Division of Agriculture, visit https://uada.edu/. Follow us on X at @AgInArk. 

Arkansas to lead $5 million grant-established center to advance robotics in poultry processing

By Fred Miller
U of A System Division of Agriculture

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — Researchers in Arkansas and two other states will be using a $5 million grant to increase use of artificial intelligence and robotics in chicken processing to reduce waste in deboning and detect pathogens.

COLLABORATION — The Center for Scalable and Intelligent Automation in Poultry Processing, established by a $5 million USDA-NIFA grant, aims to adapt robotic automation to the poultry processing industry. (U of A System Division of Agriculture photo)

The grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture will establish the Center for Scalable and Intelligent Automation in Poultry Processing. The center, led by the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture, will join researchers from five institutions in three states in efforts to adapt robotic automation to chicken meat processing.

Project director Jeyam Subbiah said the Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station, the research arm of the Division of Agriculture, will receive $2.2 million from the grant primarily to focus on food safety automation for poultry processing plants. The grant is for four years.

Subbiah is a professor and head of the food science department for the Division of Agriculture and the Dale Bumpers College of Agricultural, Food and Life Sciences at the University of Arkansas.

The Georgia Institution of Technology, better known as Georgia Tech, is a major partner in the project, Subbiah said. $2.1 million of the grant will go to Georgia Tech to focus on automating the processing lines that turn chickens into meat.

The remaining grant money will be divided between Julia McQuillan, Willa Cather professor of sociology at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, and Brou Kouakou, associate dean for research at Fort Valley State University in Georgia.

Jeff Buhr, a USDA Agricultural Research Service scientist, will contribute his expertise in broiler physiology to guide robotic deboning of meat, Subbiah said.

Georgia is the nation’s top broiler producer. Arkansas is number 3, according to 2021 figures from USDA.

Meeting the challenge

The recent impetus to automate chicken processing began with the COVID-19 pandemic, Subbiah said. The illness spread quickly among workers on the processing line. Since the worst of the pandemic, the poultry industry, like many others, has been having trouble hiring enough workers.

“Poultry processing lines began 70 to 80 years ago,” Subbiah said. “Since then, there have been only incremental changes in technology. Today, there’s a need for transformative change.”

Robotic hands are not adept at holding a chicken, he said. New technology is needed to prevent dropping slippery meats. Separating the carcasses into cuts of meat is also tricky.

“It’s hard enough to teach people how to use a knife with precision,” said Dongyi Wang, assistant professor of biological and agricultural engineering for the Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station. “Robotics are fit for repetitive tasks but don’t do well with the precision needed to cut up chicken products.”

For example, he said humans could feel when a knife hits a bone. In contrast, existing automation in poultry processing, like deboners, wastes a lot of meat.

“Human deboners leave about 13 percent of meat on the bones,” Subbiah said. “Automated deboners leave 16 to 17 percent. On an industrial scale, that’s a significant loss in value. We will use artificial intelligence and virtual reality to improve precision and reduce wastage.”

Automation can relieve labor shortages, Subbiah said. It also allows plants to locate in rural areas with a smaller labor force but nearer poultry houses and with lower property costs.

Initially, people working remotely may help advance robotic processing. Subbiah envisions workers logging on from home with virtual-reality goggles and haptics gloves to control robots located miles away.

While working remotely, the labor force will teach artificial intelligence how to cut up chickens of varying sizes and shapes.

“Automated machines right now are programmed to debone or cut up chickens based on an average size and shape. But no chicken is that size or shape,” Subbiah said. “Robot-wielded knives cut meat poorly. The machines have to learn how to adjust to the reality of random sizes and shapes.”

Research team

Arkansas’ research will involve scientists from at least three departments:

• Subbiah, Kristen Gibson and Philip Crandall from the department of food science — Gibson is also affiliated with the Center of Excellence for Poultry Science

• Casey Owens and Tomi Obe from the department of poultry science and the Center of Excellence for Poultry Science

• Dongyi Wang and Yanbin Li from biological and agricultural engineering — Wang also has an appointment in food science, and Li is affiliated with the Center of Excellence for Poultry Science

The primary focus of Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station researchers will be to automate food safety practices. Subbiah said they will develop robots that monitor processing lines for pathogens like Salmonella and maintain clean and safe spaces and equipment.

Wang and Subbiah will also develop hyperspectral imaging to detect plastics in chicken meat, Subbiah said. Wang will also develop a mobile robot that is equipped with a biosensor invented by Li to produce a biological map of the facility. The “biomap” will be used to evaluate the efficacy of sanitation.

Where the biomap indicates potential hot spots, the robot will automatically collect swabs to test for bacteria. Gibson and Obe will analyze the biomap and develop strategies to enhance food safety.

Owens and Crandall will conduct outreach activities to extend new knowledge and technology to the industry. 

Georgia Tech’s participating scientists are all faculty of the Georgia Tech Applied Research Corporation:

• Doug Britton, manager of the Agricultural Technology Research Program

• Colin Trevor Usher, senior research scientist and branch head of robotics systems and technology, Agricultural Technology Research Program

• Ai-Ping Hu, principal research engineer, Agricultural Technology Research Program

• Konrad Ahlin, research engineer, Intelligent Sustainable Technologies Division

• Michael Park, research engineer, Intelligent Sustainable Technologies Division

• Benjamin Joffe, research scientist, Intelligent Sustainable Technologies Division

• Shreyes Melkote, the Morris M. Bryan, Jr. Professorship in Mechanical Engineering, associate director of the Georgia Tech Manufacturing Institute and executive director of the Novelis Innovation Hub

Collaborative research

“We are thrilled to partner with our colleagues here in the Division of Agriculture, as well as our colleagues at Georgia Tech and the other participating institutions on this exciting project,” said David Caldwell, head of the Division of Agriculture’s poultry science department and director of the Center of Excellence for Poultry Science.

“We expect the findings from these coordinated research projects will be impactful for our stakeholders in the commercial poultry industry here in Northwest Arkansas and throughout the entire industry,” Caldwell said. “This project will help keep moving technology forward in processing and food safety of poultry.”

Britton said his team was very excited to work on this project with the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture, Fort Valley State University, and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

“The ultimate goal is to drive transformational innovation into the poultry and meat processing industry through automation, robotics, AI, and VR technologies,” Britton said. “Building on years of work in the GTRI Agricultural Technology Research Program, we are pleased to see that the USDA-NIFA has chosen this team to continue these efforts.”

Hu said, “GTRI is excited to work on such an impactful project with our fellow institutions. The last few years have highlighted the need for new technological innovations in the meat and poultry production space, which we plan to address through robotics, virtual reality, and artificial intelligence.”

McQuillan, from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, said it was exciting to be part of a multi-institutional team discovering innovative ways to improve poultry processing through automation. “As a social scientist who has studied work and health challenges and who is starting to work with extension faculty in Rural Prosperity Nebraska, this project provides great new opportunities,” she said.

McQuillan will study the effects of robotics on poultry industry laborers and how they perceive the technology.

“We hope eventually to bring new owner-operated businesses to rural areas,” McQuillan said. “Collaborating with food scientists, computer scientists, extension faculty and robotics engineers provides amazing opportunities to understand the meanings of innovations for entrepreneurs, workers, and other stakeholders, and to advance fundamental theories about science, technology, and society in sociology.”

Kouakou, from Fort Valley State University, will investigate the application of technology developed in this project to other meat processing industries. He said he was excited about working with this team of collaborators.

“Our state-of-the-art meat processing plant at the Georgia Small Ruminant Research and Extension Center on campus will serve as a resource to extend the technology developed by the Center for Scalable and Intelligent Automation in Poultry Processing to red meat species,” Kouakou said. “This research will greatly benefit our students and processors to observe artificial intelligence in meat processing.”

To learn more about Division of Agriculture research, visit the Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station website: https://aaes.uada.edu/. Follow us on Twitter at @ArkAgResearch and on Instagram at @ArkAgResearch. To learn more about the Division of Agriculture, visit https://uada.edu/. Follow us on Twitter at @AgInArk.

Researchers receive $1 million grant to develop robotic system to assist poultry processing

By Brittaney Mann
U of A System Division of Agriculture

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — The COVID-19 pandemic strained many poultry processing plants as employees became ill. With the help of a $1 million grant, Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station researchers will soon begin designing robotics to help alleviate that potential strain.

ROBOTICS — Dongyi Wang is the principal investigator in a robotics project for the poultry industry. The project is funded by a $1 million grant provided jointly by the National Science Foundation and the USDA's National Institute of Food and Agriculture. (U of A System Division of Agriculture Photo by Fred Miller)

The project will be funded through a joint proposal between the National Science Foundation’s National Robotics Initiative 3.0 and the United States Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture.

Dongyi Wang, assistant professor of biological and agricultural engineering, is the principal investigator on the project. Wang conducts research for the experiment station, the research arm of the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture. He also has a research appointment with the food science department and a teaching appointment with the University of Arkansas’ College of Engineering.

A major focus in Wang’s lab is to understand what jobs robotic and automated systems can accomplish.

“We are trying to explore the opportunities and to see how automation can help the agriculture industry and the food industry,” Wang said.

This four-year project will lead to the development of a robotic system that can hang raw chicken as human workers do to meet the long-term needs of the poultry industry.

Poultry processing plants

In 2021, the U.S. produced 59.2 billion pounds of broiler chickens, according to the USDA. Arkansas ranked No. 3 in the nation, producing 1 billion broilers — 7.46 billion pounds of meat worth $3.97 billion — in 2021, according to the 2022 Arkansas Agriculture Profile.

Many of the steps to process chicken are already automated in processing plants, Wang said. Slaughtering and evisceration do not really rely on people. Rehanging the raw chicken is one of the major steps that relies on human work. Workers on the processing line hang the birds on conveyor lines that continue to the deboning, wing-cutting and packing steps.

Lending a hand

Besides Wang, the team includes Co-PIs, Wan Shou, assistant professor in the mechanical engineering department at the University of Arkansas, and Yu She, assistant professor in the industrial engineering department at Purdue University. Casey Owens, Novus International professor of poultry science and Philip Crandall, professor of food science, both with the Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station, will also be involved with the research.

To create the automation system, the researchers will customize tactile sensory grippers and develop a high-resolution and high-speed 3D imaging system, Wang said. The 3D imaging system will allow the robotic arms to differentiate between the topmost chicken and the rest of the pile and will indicate the predetermined key points for chicken grasping. A key challenge is developing a gripper that reliably grasps the chicken without damaging the meat quality.

Shou will design the tactile sensors and She will design the robotic hand. By integrating these developments, robots will be enabled to adjust their grip based on how slick the surface is to ensure the bird is secure.

“Rather than buying an expensive robotic hand, we are going to design and fabricate a robotic hand with lower cost with the assistance of 3D printing,” Shou said.

Wang’s focus for this project is programming the two robots to work as human hands and complete the task of hanging the chicken without issues like the arms hitting one another.

They will test the robotics in the experiment station’s pilot chicken processing plant, with Owens overseeing the quality of meat handled by the robotic arms. The team will also use this project for opportunities in education and, with the help of Crandall, extension activities that target poultry and broader food industries.

Shou and She are excited to work on this project because of the advances they aim to make in artificial intelligence and multimodal sensing capabilities for intelligent robotic systems.

“With the new robotic system, we will generate new knowledge on mechanics and control,” She said.

Shou expressed confidence in the team to accomplish these advances.

“We have a great team to tackle the proposed project,” Shou said, highlighting the multiple disciplines the research involves, including manufacturing, sensors, robotics, mechanics, and computer vision and machine learning. “It has very promising applications for society,” he said.

Wang visualizes this project benefitting the scientific areas of tactile sensing, 3D imaging, dual robotic control and algorithms. He also sees it benefitting the poultry industry itself.

“It is very, very exciting that this kind of technology, even maybe not right now, but potentially, can help the local economic development and the local industry,” Wang said.

To learn more about Division of Agriculture research, visit the Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station website: https://aaes.uada.edu/. Follow us on Twitter at @ArkAgResearch. To learn more about the Division of Agriculture, visit https://uada.edu/. Follow us on Twitter at @AgInArk.