LAIA wins White House HBCU Maker and Innovation Challenge June 2016
Sponsored by The Juxtopia Group and its leader Dr. Jayfus Doswell, a native of Baltimore, the LAIA team designed the Rooftop Garden Robotics project and with it, won 1st place against 8 teams for various HBCUs including Morehouse College, Spelman College, and North Carolina A&T University. Rooftop Garden Robotics is a project geared towards addressing the issue of food deserts in Baltimore City. The project consists of a rooftop garden, a robot designed to maintain and harvest the garden, and a drone to bring the freshly picked vegetables from the rooftop to the ground where it can be shared, sold, cooked, and eaten. Artificial Intelligent software governs the interaction between humans, the robot, and the drone to make for a seamless process. The LAIA team build a prototype of the garden and the robot using Lego Mindstorm EV3s and submitted to the White House HBCU/TCU Maker & Innovation Challenge. Research and design for the project continues and will soon involve students from area high schools including Coppin Academy and Frederick Douglass High School.