Progress 02/15/18 to 02/14/23
Outputs
Target Audience:The target audiences include Extension agents, farmers, youth, and general public. Changes/Problems:
Nothing Reported
What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?See details above. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?Results of the adult drone workshops have been disseminatedat the ASA-CSSA-SSSA annual meetings and the NERAOC conference. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?
Nothing Reported
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
Objective 2: In 2022-2023, there were 419 youth that learned aboutflight theory, flight safety, coding flight patterns, and manual flight operations for drones across 5 workshops in Tennessee. Objective 3: Results of this project were disseminated at a Crop Science Society of America symposium, "Translating Data from Drones and Digital Platforms to Actionable Crop Management Decisions", at their Annual Meeting in Baltimore, MD in November 2022. Objective 5: The overall impact of the adult workshops across all years was determined. There were 362 participants and 28 Extension agents engaged. Evaluations identified a significant change in knowledge, interest, and awareness of drone use in agriculture. 95% indicated an increase in their knowledge, and 54% indicated an increase in their interest in purchasing a drone in the next two years. After engaging in hands-on activities flying a drone, 70% realized that drones were not as difficult to fly as they originally thought. This indicates a large barrier exists for droneadoption and more opportunities like this are needed. Drone certification trainings engaged over 350 participants through the University of Tennessee, the University of Kentucky, the University of Georgia, the American Society of Agronomy and the Tennessee Department of Agriculture. 84% indicated an increased likelihood of getting their certification.
Publications
- Type:
Other
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2023
Citation:
Saini, P., and J.P. de Koff. 2023. Using drones in forestlands and nurseries. Tennessee State University Cooperative Extension Program, ANR-B24. Available at: https://www.tnstate.edu/extension/documents/Forestlands.pdf
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Progress 02/15/21 to 02/14/22
Outputs
Target Audience:The target audiences included farmers, Extension agents, and youth. Changes/Problems:There were still some difficulties in engaging stakeholders in hands-on workshop in Fall 2021 due to increased case counts for COVID-19. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?See above. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?Results of the farmer trainings were disseminated at the American Society of Agronomy Annual Meeting in November 2021 in Salt Lake City, UT. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?Additional farmer and youth workshops will be planned and implemented. Results of the projectwill be disseminated at the National Association of County Agricultural Agents conference in July 2022 and the Association of Extension Administrators conference in August 2022.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
1) Farmer trainings were implementedin sixTennessee counties (Blount, Maury, Morgan, Rhea, Shelby, and Van Buren). Farmers learned about the uses for drones in agriculture, drone laws and regulations, and drone options and costs. The farmer participants also had the opportunityto fly a DJI Mini 2 drone. 2) Drone workshops were held for youth fromfiveTennessee counties (Cheatham, Cumberland, Franklin, Greene, and Madison) and a national conference. The youth learned drone safety, manual flight, and autonomous flight usingDJI Tello drones 5)A retrospective-post survey instrument was used to evaluate farmer participants. Important results are highlighted below: 96% of participants increased their knowledge 76% of participants identifiedthat flying drones were not as difficult to fly as they originally thought 50% of participants increased their likelihood of purchasing a drone in the next 2 years A post activity survey was conducted with the youth participants. The instrument used was the 4-H Common Measures Science Survey. A few of the results are listed below: 75% of the youth participants are sort of interested or interested in a job that uses engineering. 82% of the participants learned new things about science from the event 89% of the participants sort of learned or learned new things about engineering.
Publications
- Type:
Other
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2022
Citation:
de Koff, J.P., and P. Saini. 2022. Using drones in animal production. Tennessee State University Cooperative Extension Program, ANR-B23. https://www.tnstate.edu/extension/documents/DroneAnimal.pdf
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Progress 02/15/20 to 02/14/21
Outputs
Target Audience:The participants included farmers, crop consultants, agricultural industry professionals, agricultural research and extension professionals, students, and high school teachers. Changes/Problems:The major issue was caused byCOVID-19 which led to the grounding of our program during a large portion of this reporting period. As the impactful part of our program is the hands-on training, this required us to request a one year extension. In the meantime, we focused on delivering the program through virtual methods (i.e. online training, online fact sheets and videos). What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?See above. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?Results of the project were disseminated through an oral presentation at the virtual American Society of Agronomy Annual Meeting in November 2020. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?We will continue to hold drone training workshops for farmers and youth through the next reporting period. We will disseminate results again at the American Society of Agronomy Annual Meetings in November 2021 in Salt Lake City, UT.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
1) Hands-on experiential training was provided in late February and early March 2020 to 52 participants in Sullivan and Robertson counties in Tennessee before COVID-19 grounded our program. Virtual drone certification trainings were held for 261 participants through the American Society of Agronomy, the Tennessee State University Cooperative Extension Program, or the Tennessee Department of Education in March 2020, May 2020, June 2020, July 2020, and February 2021. 2) No 4-H programs for youth were held during this reporting period. 3) Factsheets, videos and trade publications related to drone technology and our drone program were published online. 4) No additional trainings were provided to undergraduate students during this period. One graduate student assisted with the development of factsheets and a trade publication as well asanalysis of evaluations from previous drone programs. 5) The impact of the two farmer training programs are as follows: In Robertson county, 82% of participants indicated an increase in knowledge. In Sullivan county, 67% of participants believed drones were not as difficult to fly as they originally thought, 44% had increased interest in purchasing a drone for their farm in the next 2 years, and 89% indicated an increase in their knowledge. The impact of thevirtual drone certification training programs are as follows: 98% of participants indicated an increase in knowledge 75% of participants indicated an increase in their confidence in getting their remote pilot certification 93% of teacher participants indicated an increase in their confidence teaching their students about drones or for the remote pilot certification
Publications
- Type:
Other
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2020
Citation:
de Koff, J.P., and P. Saini. 2020. Using software to capture and analyze drone images.
Tennessee State University Cooperative Extension Program, ANR-B21. Available at: http://www.tnstate.edu/faculty/jdekoff/documents/DroneSoftware.pdf
- Type:
Other
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2020
Citation:
de Koff, J.P., and P. Saini. 2020. Drone and sensor options and costs. Tennessee State
University Cooperative Extension Program, ANR-B20. Available at: http://www.tnstate.edu/faculty/jdekoff/documents/DronesandSensors.pdf
- Type:
Other
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2020
Citation:
de Koff, J.P. 2020. Drone laws and regulations. Tennessee State University
Cooperative Extension Program, ANR-B19. Available at: http://www.tnstate.edu/faculty/jdekoff/documents/DroneLaws.pdf
- Type:
Other
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2020
Citation:
de Koff, J.P., and P. Saini. 2020. Agricultural uses for drones. Tennessee State
University Cooperative Extension Program, ANR-B18. Available at: http://www.tnstate.edu/faculty/jdekoff/documents/DronesinAg.pdf
- Type:
Other
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2020
Citation:
Saini, P., and J.P. de Koff. 2020. Drones and dairy cows: Managing livestock. Dairy Global, 27 July, https://www.dairyglobal.net/Smart-farming/Articles/2020/7/Drones-and-the-dairy-cows-Managing-livestock-618713E/
- Type:
Other
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2020
Citation:
de Koff, J.P. 2020. Beginners guide to agricultural drones. Future Farming, 14 Apr., https://www.futurefarming.com/Machinery/Articles/2020/4/Beginners-guide-to-agricultural-drones-569413E/
- Type:
Other
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2020
Citation:
Birt, N. 2020. Q&A: Maximize drone ROI on your farm. Farm Journal's PORK, 3 Sept., https://www.porkbusiness.com/news/hog-production/qa-maximize-drone-roi-your-farm
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Progress 02/15/19 to 02/14/20
Outputs
Target Audience:The target audience reached included youth, undergraduate students, farmers, and extension agents. Changes/Problems:There was difficulty in implementingregional workshops related to drone technology for both youth and adult audiences due to low enrollment. Marketing the program was performed through the Cooperative Extension System, however, few individuals registered. Instead, our projectworkshops were incorporated into existing farmer and youth programs in 2019 to ensure participation. For example, the farmer workshops were incorporated into the TSU New Farmer Academy program and implemented through their workshops in each of the three regions of Tennessee. Also, smaller, county-based farmer workshopswere launched in January-March 2020 which provided additional participation. Following the three regional meetings, anecdotal evidence identified that participants may be less interested in flying an actual UAS after using the flight simulator softwarebecause it may make them more concerned about crashing. Therefore, the flight simulations were removed from the farmer workshops but remained for the youth workshops. This also allowed the smaller, county-based farmer workshops to be more nimble and only require one person to implement. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?In addition to the training and professional development identified under the accomplishments from Objectives 1 and 2, training and professional development was also provided to extension agents, agriculture industry professionals and research staff through threeUAS certification training workshops. These workshops and thecurriculum were developed as a result of this project. One training was held through the American Society of Agronomy for 30 participants as a series of 4 1-hour webinars in September 2019. 80% of those who took the certification exam indicated that the series helped them prepare. The other two workshops occurred in Princeton and Lexington, Kentucky in February 2020and trained 44research staff and extension agents. 84% increased their knowledge based on a pre- and post-test and 93% indicated that the training increased their likelihood of getting drone certification. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?
Nothing Reported
What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?Depending upon the COVID-19 pandemic, we plan to engage in more farmer and youth training programs. As we are focusing on hands-on experiences for both audiences, the current social distancing requirements may delay these. Online or in person drone certification training workshopswill also occur. We also will create videos and fact sheets based on the curriculum developed and post these online. Updates will also be made to our website (http://www.tnstate.edu/faculty/jdekoff/drone.aspx) and to social media (Twitter:@TSUBioenergy). Data collected from evaluations will be presented at the American Society of Agronomy Annual Meeting and likely be submitted to a peer-reviewed journal. Evaluation of the impact of undergraduate training will also be implemented.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
Objective #1: Incorporate UAS technology to demonstrate its potential uses in agricultural production and provide hands-on experiential training to farmers Workshops were held in 9 counties in Tennessee which included 142 farmers and 28 Extension agents. Farmers had the opportunity to fly a Phantom 4 PRO UAS and learn about uses for UASin agriculture, federal and state regulations for UAS, and different UAS options and costs Objective #2: Incorporate UAS technology to provide agricultural workforce development and teach STEM concepts to youth Three separate workshops (National 4-H Congress, Davidson County 4-H GROWS Camp, I3 STEM Summer Camp) were heldthat included 258 youth participants. These workshops focused on UAS flight, codingand safety. Objective #3: Disseminate results and outputs through online and hard copy formats This has not yet been performed. Objective #4: Provide training to undergraduate students in extension curriculum development and UAS technology Three undergraduate students were provided with this training in June 2019 as part fo the I3 STEM Summer Camp. The studentsfocused on troubleshooting and implementing extension curriculum and used UAS technology for this workshop. Objective #5: Evaluate the impact of the workshops and undergraduate training Preliminary results found: 55% of farmers had increased interest in purchasing a UAS in the next 2 years after completing the workshops 63% of farmers changed their minds about UAS being difficult to fly indicating that they were lessdifficult than theythought 98% of farmers indicated an increase in their knowledge after completing the workshops 80% of extension agents had increased capacity to assist stakeholders with questions related to UAS and their software after completing the workshop 93% of youth participants in the I3 STEM Summer Camp either somewhat agree or agree that they know how to use the scientific method to solve problems
Publications
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Progress 02/15/18 to 02/14/19
Outputs
Target Audience:Though not originally part of the proposal, a curriculum was developed to engage Extension agents and teachers in training for their remote pilot certification. This would not have been done without the funding for remote pilot certification training the PI received as part of this grant. Changes/Problems:
Nothing Reported
What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?
Nothing Reported
How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?
Nothing Reported
What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?We will hold three Extension agent in-service trainings using the remote pilot certification curriculum that has been developed. We will provide handout materials to participants and evaluate the program following the activities using participant questionnaires. We will develop and implement curricula for separate adult and 4-H workshops (3 workshops per group) related to drone technology. We will provide handout materials to participants and evaluate the program following the activities using participant questionnaires. We will engage undergraduate students in the development/troubleshooting, implementation, and evaluation of the 4-H workshop curriculum. This engagement will be evaluated following the activities. We will disseminate information related to drone technology for youth and adult audiences through the development and publishing of fact sheets, uploading video to our TSU Extension YouTube channel, and the PI's Twitter account (@TSUBioenergy).
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
A curriculum was developedto provide training to Extension agents and teachers for their remote pilot certification. Phantom 4 Pro Version 2 drones were purchased to assist with development of workshops. A stakeholder advisory group was formed and met to identify topics for the adult audiences.
Publications
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