MUDBUG (Multi-Use Data-acquisition Bio Unit Group)

Advisors | VIP Course Section Number | Website | Goals

Issues Involved or Addressed | Subteams | Methods & Technologies 

Majors Looking for on this Team | Preferred Interests, Preparation, Skills 

Team Contact Information

Advisors (and respective Department)

Neveen Shlayan (EE), Matt Bower (Hum, starting fall 2023) 

VIP Course Section Number

VIP-38X-A 

Website

mudbug.cooper.edu

Goals

Understand how data collection can bolster different agricultural systems, and develop sensor modules to collect said data. 

Issues Involved or Addressed

  • Food Security 
  • Precision Agriculture 
  • Soil Restoration and Rehabilitation 
  • Data-Informed Management 
  • Self-Sufficiency and Decentralization 
  • Community Development and Engagement 
  • Marketability 
  • Resilient Design 

Subteams

Subteams will be divided into themes/sections, rather than specific projects. Students will not be constrained to any one team which would allow for "cross-pollination" of knowledge sets: –Modeling –IoT –Agriculture –Outreach/recruiting

Methods & Technologies

Open source development, IoT, Iterative design process.

Majors Looking for on this Team

All engineering majors, art, and architecture.

Preferred Interests, Preparation, Skills

1. Background/interest in:

  • Food agriculture, food justice, and food networks
  • "Smart" city futures
  • Sustainability and equity
  • Intersectional environmentalism
  • Open source IoT
  • Fabrication/making methods
  • Interdisciplinarity

2. Experience with or willingness to learn:

  • Working in a team
  • Clear communication skills
  • Project development & organization
  • Multiple plant growth methods, in both hydroponic & soil-based realms
  • Microcontroller & sensing network I/O
  • Modeling methods
  • Assembly/hand tool methods
  • Management and collaboration software

3. Completion of:

  • EID 101 (or similar introductory design course)

Team Contact information

Please contact Brandon Hunt at bunt@cooper.edu.

  • Founded by inventor, industrialist and philanthropist Peter Cooper in 1859, The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art offers education in art, architecture and engineering, as well as courses in the humanities and social sciences.

  • “My feelings, my desires, my hopes, embrace humanity throughout the world,” Peter Cooper proclaimed in a speech in 1853. He looked forward to a time when, “knowledge shall cover the earth as waters cover the great deep.”

  • From its beginnings, Cooper Union was a unique institution, dedicated to founder Peter Cooper's proposition that education is the key not only to personal prosperity but to civic virtue and harmony.

  • Peter Cooper wanted his graduates to acquire the technical mastery and entrepreneurial skills, enrich their intellects and spark their creativity, and develop a sense of social justice that would translate into action.