Agricademy, Design Academy… ___

Agricademy

Understand agriculture in an ecosystem to innovate with agriculture techniques & tools

Basic Information

The same principle as FabAcademy: a tour of techniques, students have to document and deepen each week, hands on experience & exercices.

Schedule / growing time / seasons : Projects need a long time : growing of plants, balanced ecosystems reaching. A one-year cycle gives the opportunity to watch progress and understand seasons and climate. Schedule could be concentrated in the fall, and reviews could be extended for one year.

Possibilities for “rural” and “urban” choices. Nodes could have different infrastructure : greenhouses, fields, food gardens, rooftops … Local instructor help students to search, and will probably specialise in relation to the node infrastructure.

Subjects , not in order, can be merged or spread on more than one week :

Ecosystems

plant cycle, needs, water, sun/lighting, soils, diseases / Time & seasons , climate plant sexual reproduction or asexual/rhizome/stolons/pollination/seeds… genetics 3D layers : canopy layer/dwarf layer/shrub layer/soil surface/vertical(vines)/ground cover wildlife, insects, birds, animals… mycorrhiza / symbiotic / predation soil and plant measure : dry mass, NPK , fertiliser… agriculture history and evolution in local context Economics & Agriculture

Different agriculture methods and tools :

  • Agricultural machinery : Heavy metal welding - hydraulic/electric/… tillage, mechanical or chemical preparation… organic/intensive farming…

  • Greenhouse/ climate adaptation / principle : DIY tunnels , thermal mass, watering …

  • Self-loop ecosystems : aquaponics/hydroponics - algaes - insects / Growing material: mushroom, algae, kombucha, kefir …

  • Derivative products : textile, transformation…

  • Electronics in harsh conditions : Enclosure / External power / Low power

  • “Precision Farming” : RTK positioning , Self-driving , Farmebot , Robotics …

  • Measure & Forecast : Satellite - Image analysis - drones / Image recognition - insect - flowers - diseases … / sensors & IOT / Weather forecast implementation for culture

Optional :

How to conserve vegetables for food : fermenting, dehydration, freezing, food for canning …

Food & Cooking technologies: different heating technique for cooking, … , flour, beer, …

How to Design (Almost) Anything

More info coming soon…