Agricultural Engineering Students Research Articles

Adding Machine-Learning Functionality to Real Equipment for Water Preservation: An Evaluation Case Study in Higher Education

Considering that the fusion of education and technology has delivered encouraging outcomes, things are becoming more challenging for higher education as students seek experiences that bridge the gap between theory and their future professional roles. Giving priority to the above issue, this study presents methods and results from activities assisting engineering students to utilize recent machine-learning techniques for tackling the challenge of water resource preservation. Cost-effective, innovative hardware and software components were incorporated for monitoring the proper operation of the corresponding agricultural equipment (such as electric pumps or water taps), and suitable educational activities were developed involving students of agricultural engineering. According to the evaluation part of the study being presented, the implementation of a machine-learning system with sufficient performance is feasible, while the outcomes derived from its educational application are significant, as they acquaint engineering students with emerging technologies entering the scene and improve their capacity for innovation and cooperation. The study demonstrates how emerging technologies, such as IoT, ML, and the newest edge-AI techniques can be utilized in the agricultural industry for the development of sustainable agricultural practices. This aims to preserve natural resources such as water, increase productivity, and create new jobs for technologically efficient personnel.

Factors Influencing Entrepreneurial Intention among Agricultural Engineering Students in Adverse Business Environment

Entrepreneurial intention is an important step toward nascent entrepreneurship. Many studies have been conducted in developed countries, but the key factors enhancing entrepreneurial intention in developing countries still need to be discovered. In many developing countries, adverse business environment hampers entrepreneurial intention, particularly among young people who tend to develop migration intention instead. However, when they are educated, young people have the potentiality to innovate and face risky business environments. In this study, the first to analyze the entrepreneurial intention of students in agricultural schools in Haiti, we collected primary data from a country-representative sample of 281 students studying in 21 Haitian agricultural engineering schools. Following the theories of planned behavior and entrepreneurial intention, we use both statistical and econometric analysis to assess the entrepreneurial intention and its determinants. Despite a turbulent context, the results revealed a high rate (54.1%) of entrepreneurial intention among students in agricultural engineering schools. This intention was significantly associated with factors like knowledge in business plan preparation, identification of successful agribusiness, experience in leadership and a relentless quest for autonomy.In contrast with the fact that when the stakes are high, people tend to be risk averse, results of this study show agricultural engineering students want to bring solutions even in risky contexts with limited resources. This study suggests that, in troubled countries like Haiti, with severe food insecurity, agricultural engineering students represent actors that can help create a promising future if appropriate support is brought to transform entrepreneurial intention into effective business creation.

Research on the Current Situation and Countermeasures of Improving Talent Cultivation Quality by Managing Skill Competitions in Higher Vocational Colleges in the Internet Era

Abstract Skills competition is an essential link in the cultivation of applied talents in higher vocational colleges and universities, and plays a crucial role in improving the quality of practical teaching. This paper focuses on the mode and process of talent cultivation through skill competitions in higher vocational colleges and universities. It conducts an in-depth investigation on the cultivation quality. A comprehensive evaluation model of talent cultivation quality of skill competition is constructed using the particle swarm algorithm to optimize the K-means algorithm and combining with the principal component analysis method. The model was applied to a sample of students from university X. By collecting and analyzing the data, the quantitative assessment of the students’ abilities in each dimension and the hierarchical categorization of the comprehensive skills were carried out. The study results showed that students who participated in the skills competition performed well in their professional skills, averaging 0.312. However, there is still room for improvement in collaboration ability. Students of agricultural engineering, logistics management and finance are outstanding in management practice power and professional competitiveness, with a comprehensive score of more than 0.45. While economics, law, geology and accounting students have low complete scores, which need to be further strengthened for cultivation. To improve the quality of talent cultivation, higher vocational colleges and universities should build a training mode of “integration of competition and education”, deepen the cooperation between schools and enterprises, and improve the guarantee system of skill competitions, to comprehensively promote the enhancement of students’ abilities.

Tractor Stability for Agricultural Engineering Students: Learning Through a Project-Based Task

Most of the fatalities in the agricultural sector in developed countries are related to machinery use, particularly tractor overturning. Despite its importance, a lack of practical teaching about this topic has been detected in the Agricultural Engineering curricula. For this reason, an active learning activity was planned within a teaching innovation project. The objective of this project was to design a structure as new teaching material to implement and use it to determine the tractor’s center of gravity coordinates. This teaching innovation project was organized in two stages: 1) The design of proposals by students following previously established requirements, and 2) A practical exercise to analyze tractor stability. Each stage involved students from two different Agricultural Engineering degree subjects. Before the second stage, the professor performed the final design of the structure based on previous proposals and later the structure was built. Five different ramp design proposals were received and graded in the first stage. A positive correlation between peer review and the professor’s grades was found. During the second stage, the ramps were used in another subject, in which the grades obtained in the related practical exercise were significantly higher in comparison with those got in the previous year. However, no improvement was found in the final exam grades. This activity involved students in the entire learning process and showed a positive influence on some of the evaluation activities.

Educating Future Agricultural Engineers at the University of Burgos, Spain, through a Service-Learning Project on Rural Depopulation and Its Social Consequences

A Service-Learning Project (S-LP) is a teaching experience through which the concepts covered during an educational course can practically be applied to address a given social problem. It is therefore a useful teaching methodology to bring courses closer to the real world. An S-LP experience is reported in this paper that was conducted with students of agricultural engineering to address the problem of rural depopulation, through the design of agri-food buildings for industries, and economic activities that help to maintain a stable population. After the S-LP, a survey was administered to both students and teachers, to assess the success of this teaching experience. The responses of the students showed not only an awareness of the social problem that was addressed, but also a critical spirit that led them to seek the best possible answer, and a global vision of the issue. It helped them to reflect on all of its facets to arrive at a way of engaging with the social problem. Importantly, the students were able to reflect upon how engineers can also serve society through their technical knowledge. The teachers indicated that the S-LP motivated the students on the course, while enabling them to successfully learn the concepts, and to develop independent study skills searching for information. In general, an S-LP is an experience that the teachers in this study would recommend and that could be especially relevant for universities assuming a role as a social entity to heighten the visibility of social problems and needs.

Agricultural Engineering Students’ Segmentation in Relation to Their Attitudes towards English-Medium Instruction

The School of Agricultural Engineering has been involved in English-medium instruction (EMI) within the framework of the internationalization strategy of the University of Extremadura (Spain). Several years after these actions were initiated, it has become necessary to analyze them, with the main objective of researching the attitude of the students towards it, keeping the focus on finding common trends. With this aim, a segmentation of the students was carried out based on a questionnaire that included aspects related to their attitudes towards English-medium instruction, their socio-demographic characteristics and the program they were enrolled in. A total of 251 students were surveyed, and the data were analyzed by performing a multiple correspondence analysis and a cluster analysis. They revealed three typologies of students with clearly different underlying features, especially related to the program and year in which they were enrolled, their age and English level, and their perceived skills. The main conclusion is that the multivariate techniques applied are useful tools to identify groups of students with different features in the EMI frame, which may facilitate the launch of specific actions focused on the needs and expectations of each group to ensure that EMI programs and students achieve their goals.

Проектное обучение и кейс-технологии: подготовка специалиста-агроинженера на курсе химии

The requirements for the level of theoretical and practical knowledge and skills of agricultural specialists are increasing every year. Chemical subjects form the basis of natural science education of future agricultural specialists. To improve the effectiveness of the educational process, the practice of teaching introduces many different teaching methods. The authors analyzed didactic opportunities of project-based learning and case technology n the context of methodological psychological and pedagogical concepts, in particular, the structure of activity and the logic of personality development. It is established that these methods used in the teaching of chemistry activate all the components of the structure of learning activity: cognitive, value-oriented, communicative, transformative, physical, and aesthetic. The article outlines the ways of using project-based learning and case technologies in the study of chemical subjects by agricultural engineering students. Given as an example is a case study on determining the quality of drinking water by titrimetric and potentiometric analysis methods and selection of a household filter for drinking water purification. The authors dwell on the methodology of performing tasks and define the criteria for evaluating the learning outcomes. Project-based learning and case technologies should meet a number of requirements, have a system of evaluation criteria, certain goals and practice-oriented task, which will enable and motivate students to solve practical problems in their future professional activities.

Интеллектуальное воспитание в процессе подготовки агроинженеров

Intellectual education is an activity aimed at personal development, including such intellectual qualities as competence, creativity, a unique mindset, self-regulation, etc. Intellectual education is an integral part of the education process. The tasks of intellectual education are determined based on students’ intelligence, the level of their compliance with the requirements of professional activity. The authors conducted an empirical study of the peculiarities of mental experience of agricultural engineering students to assess the development of operational characteristics of thinking, determine the relationship between the parameters of intelligence and the level of self-regulation, the correlation of empirical data with the criteria of intellectual education. The study involved 97 students of the Institute of Mechanics and Power Engineering named after V.P. Goryachkin of Russian State Agrarian University - Moscow Timiryazev Agricultural Academy. The results of the empirical study demonstrated a direct relationship between the levels of development of thinking operations and components of volitional regulation of activity. The peculiarity of intellectual development of future agricultural engineers is insufficient formation of a number of intellectual skills, which hinders the formation of intellectual qualities of a professional. To ensure effective and successful engineering activity of graduates (training area 35.03.06 Agroengineering), it is necessary to expand students’ outlook, enrich general mental experience and form a set of professional knowledge, as well as train basic thinking operations.

Determining GMO awareness among students of agricultural engineering in Turkiye

Courses on GMOs in Agricultural Faculties are included in the curriculum of the departments under different names. It was aimed to determine the knowledge level of 273 agricultural engineering students from Faculty of Agriculture studying at Kırsehir Ahi Evran University, Turkiye in this study. The questionnaire consisted of a test on Personal Information Scale to measure their knowledge about GMO Foods. The data obtained showed that the students in the Department of Agricultural Biotechnology had the highest level of awareness about GMOs and GMO based foods. It was concluded that awareness and knowledge of the students was related to their subject of the study, grade and gender. It was understood that male students had a higher GMO awareness compared to the female students. The results of the study revealed that it was appropriate and necessary to include more detailed courses about GMOs in the curricula of the departments in faculties of agriculture. The findings obtained from this study can be used as a source to prepare or rearrange curricula of the departments in agricultural faculties.

Enhanced Robots as Tools for Assisting Agricultural Engineering Students’ Development

Inevitably, the rapid growth of the electronics industry and the wide availability of tailored programming tools and support are accelerating the digital transformation of the agricultural sector. The latter transformation seems to foster the hopes for tackling the depletion and degradation of natural resources and increasing productivity in order to cover the needs of Earth’s continuously growing population. Consequently, people getting involved with modern agriculture, from farmers to students, should become familiar with and be able to use and improve the innovative systems making the scene. At this point, the contribution of the STEM educational practices in demystifying new areas, especially in primary and secondary education, is remarkable and thus welcome, but things become quite uncertain when trying to discover efficient practices for higher education, and students of agricultural engineering are not an exception. Indeed, university students are not all newcomers to STEM and ask for real-world experiences that better prepare them for their professional careers. Trying to bridge the gap, this work highlights good practices during the various implementation stages of electric robotic ground vehicles that can serve realistic agricultural tasks. Several innovative parts, such as credit card-sized systems, AI-capable modules, smartphones, GPS, solar panels, and network transceivers are properly combined with electromechanical components and recycled materials to deliver technically and educationally meaningful results.

Motivación de los estudiantes hacia el uso de la tecnología para el aprendizaje de las matemáticas

Este trabajo nos describe la construcción y validación de un cuestionario de estudio de la motivación hacia las matemáticas y su aprendizaje con el uso de la tecnología. Se realiza un análisis componencial a partir de su aplicación a 229 estudiantes de ingeniería Agropecuaria, en Sistemas Computacionales y Computación y Redes de la Universidad Estatal del Sur de Manabí. Se aplicó una encuesta para evaluar cuatro aspectos diferentes de la motivación de los estudiantes hacia el uso de la tecnología en el proceso de enseñanza y aprendizaje de las matemáticas, que consideramos importantes: utilidad de la tecnología en las matemáticas, motivación de los estudiantes por la implementación de la tecnología en las matemáticas, no utilidad de la tecnología en las matemáticas, y resultados de los estudiantes con respecto al aprendizaje de las matemáticas con el uso de la tecnología. El análisis factorial del cuestionario da como resultado un modelo de cinco factores como el más representativo, con un factor residual y cuatro factores relevantes. Este análisis confirma la congruencia del cuestionario con el planteamiento inicial y prueba su fiabilidad y consistencia interna. El análisis de consistencia interna por factor nos permitió identificar que los primeros cuatro factores del modelo encontrado para nuestro estudio son relevantes. El último puede considerarse como un factor residual, ya que tiene una baja consistencia interna. De manera general, los cuatro factores relevantes que han surgido del análisis factorial muestran la congruencia del cuestionario con la estructura establecida, que trataba de evaluar los cuatro factores iniciales.

A Geospatial Thinking Multiyear Study

In the field of environmental sustainability and landscape management, geospatial thinking is necessary. A good level of geospatial thinking is related to academic success in engineering degrees. It is relevant, therefore, to detect the possible deficiencies that university students may have in tasks related to geospatial thinking. This research presents the results of a 2014‒2019 multiyear study with agricultural engineering students, in which seven geospatial tasks were analyzed. The statistical analysis shows that geospatial tasks related to slope, stream/water flow, visibility, and relief interpretation are the best at predicting the final course mark. The present research provides quantitative data on the efficiency that four technologies have to reinforce geospatial thinking focused on each task. Augmented Reality is an appropriate 3D technology for geospatial tasks related to route search, stream/water flow, and elevation points. SketchUp Make 2017 and Autodesk 123D Make showed their potential to solve tasks related to terrain slope and visibility analysis. Spatial Data Infrastructure has given the best results in geospatial tasks related to the photointerpretation of the relief and with topographic profiles of the terrain. Our findings will help teachers to select the most appropriate geospatial tasks to include in their courses.

Perfil de ingreso de los estudiantes a la Facultad de Ciencias Agrícolas en la Universidad Central del Ecuador

En este artículo se estudia el perfil de ingreso de los estudiantes a la Facultad de Ciencias Agrícolas en la Universidad Central del Ecuador, mediante el análisis de las estrategias, motivos y enfoques de aprendizaje que modelan el comportamiento del estudiante e influyen en su desempeño. La falta de interés y los documentos publicados alrededor de las Ciencias Agrícolas dan énfasis a la investigación experimental, dejando relegada la investigación educativa, dando como resultado pocos estudios sobre el tema a nivel nacional e internacional. Se aplicó en forma virtual y voluntaria el  Cuestionario de Procesos de Estudio - Revisado R-SPQ-2F. La población estuvo conformada por 80 estudiantes de la Carrera de Ingeniería Agronómica y 20 estudiantes de la Carrera de Turismo Ecológico. Se relacionaron los enfoques de aprendizaje con factores extra curriculares como la carrera, el género y el nivel de estudio de los padres. Los resultados muestran que la mayoría de estudiantes prefieren el enfoque superficial, que tiene como base fundamental la motivación extrínseca, y apuesta por el aprendizaje memorístico. No se encontró ninguna relación relevante entre el enfoque de aprendizaje y los factores extracurriculares; sin embargo, los estudiantes con padres con el mayor nivel educativo presentan el mayor enfoque superficial. Lo anterior señala que el objetivo de los estudiantes es aprobar sus estudios aunque esto implique obtener las mínimas calificaciones. Se concluye que es fundamental conocer el perfil de ingreso de los estudiantes, con la finalidad de implementar métodos y metodologías para conseguir el aprendizaje significativo, prevenir el fracaso y la deserción estudiantil.

Solving Power Balance Problems in Single-Traction Tractors Using PTractor Plus 1.1, a Possible Learning Aid for Students of Agricultural Engineering

Tractors are used to perform jobs that require different types of agricultural tools to be attached to their rear, to their front, or both. These tools may need to be dragged, towed, or suspended above ground, and sometimes require a power supply; this is usually obtained via a hydraulic system or from the tractor’s power take-off system. When tractors have to work with such tools on different types of soils and on different slopes, the need arises to calculate the power the tractor engine will have to produce. In the classroom, this is normally calculated manually with the help of a calculator. This work, however, describes a computer program (written in Delphi and operating under Windows) that rapidly solves the most common types of power balance problems associated with single-traction tractors. The value of this software as a learning aid for students of agricultural engineering is discussed.

Promoting the Use of Numerical Computing Tools among Students of Agricultural Engineering

Promoting the Use of Numerical Computing Tools among Students of Agricultural Engineering

Generic competences acquisition through classroom activities in first-year agricultural engineering students

Generic skills need to be developed by university students to prepare them for lifelong learning. Higher education institutions play a key role in developing appropriate strategies for a competences-based approach with learning activities defined in terms of knowledge and skills. Although current knowledge assessments focus on individual grading, skill acquisition assessments require a social context. This paper proposes that generic skills can, and should, be developed from year 1 at university through active learning methods. The assessment of generic competences acquisition at university relies on the design and performance of useful activities rather than on specific outcomes in competence subjects of university programmes. Several active learning methods were applied to a first-year agricultural engineering course on Soil Science in the Polytechnic University of Valencia; these methods are described and their usefulness for students’ skills acquisition is analysed.

Semi-virtual Plant for the Modelling, Control and Supervision of batch-processes. An example of a greenhouse irrigation system

In this work, a hardware-software architecture for control engineering education is proposed and a case of study regarding a greenhouse irrigation virtual process has been implemented. This specific process is especially useful for subjects related to industrial automation, since it is characterized by mixed dynamics (continuous/discrete) and can be controlled by a Programmable Logic Controller (PLC). In such a case, there is no need to access to the real process that is not always available for practical exercises. Moreover, the developed scheme eliminates the maintenance costs related to real process, being a very important advantage for academic institutions. The developed architecture for the industrial process simulation uses Labview, OPC, MODBUS, SolidWorks and Schneider Modicon M340 PLC for the control of virtual processes. The developed example is applied to the greenhouse fertirrigation control that enables the agricultural engineering students to design the irrigation control system. The control strategy is implemented on the PLC which interacts with the virtual process by carrying out the necessary actions in order to control the appropriate variables of the process.

Una introducción a la derivada desde la variación y el cambio: resultados de una investigación con estudiantes de primer año de la universidad

El estudio del cálculo juega un rol importante cuando es necesario cuantificar o medir algún fenómeno. Sin embargo, en el sistema educativo se han priorizado, en general, procesos de construcción formales y aspectos algorítmicos. Buscando dar respuesta a esta problemática se inició una investigación, abordando el estudio de la derivada. El trabajo se enmarcó en la línea del Pensamiento y Lenguaje Variacional, que estudia la articulación entre la investigación y las prácticas sociales que dan vida a la matemática de la variación y el cambio en los sistemas didácticos. En el contexto de una ingeniería didáctica, se diseñó una secuencia que se llevó al aula con alumnos de Matemática II de la carrera Ingeniería Agronómica. Las actividades permitieron analizar diversos escenarios de variación (qué magnitudes cambian, cómo y cuánto cambian), caracterizar variaciones entre las magnitudes, a través del cálculo de razones de cambio, y explorar cómo la pendiente de una curva se relaciona con la razón de cambio. Su presentación, desde diferentes representaciones, favorece el desarrollo de uno de los procesos cognitivos implicados en el pensamiento matemático, el de visualización. En este artículo se describen brevemente los aspectos teóricos y metodológicos que fundamentan el diseño de la secuencia y se presentan algunos resultados obtenidos de su implementación a partir de la observación de las actividades desarrolladas por los alumnos. La propuesta logró motivar a los alumnos y movilizar sus concepciones. La discusión de los resultados obtenidos favorece la optimización de la secuencia.

Precision agriculture for grain production systems

Precision Agriculture (PA) is an approach to managing the variability in production agriculture in a more economic and environmentally efficient manner. It has been pioneered as a management tool in the grains industry, and while its development and uptake continues to grow amongst grain farmers worldwide, a broad range of other cropping industries have embraced the concept. This book explains general PA theory, identifies and describes essential tools and techniques, and includes practical examples from the grains industry.
 Readers will gain an understanding of the magnitude, spatial scale and seasonality of measurable variability in soil attributes, plant growth and environmental conditions. They will be introduced to the role of sensing systems in measuring crop, soil and environment variability, and discover how this variability may have a significant impact on crop production systems. Precision Agriculture for Grain Production Systems will empower crop and soil science students, agronomy and agricultural engineering students, as well as agronomic advisors and farmers to critically analyse the impact of observed variation in resources on crop production and management decisions.

Spatial Training using Digital Tablets

Abstract The spatial skills are a core competency in the new engineering degrees belonging to the European Space for Higher Education. This work aims to find out the improvement of spatial abilities using a workshop held on digital tablets (iPad). For this purpose, the choice of a web-based spatial training course for mobile phones developed at University of Laguna for mobile phones was adapted for this research having in mind the dimensions of the digital tablet. The hypothesis is that expanding the size of the screen strengthens the spatial abilities of students also improving satisfaction rather than previous experiences. The workshop installed in a learning virtual environment (moodle) and has several difficulty levels. The pilot test for this material took place on agricultural engineering students during 2011-2012. Using the iPad given to every student, the workshop happened outside class hours. For measuring the spatial skills before and after the workshop, we used different technical drawing exercises used in the Spanish university admission exams over the last few years. Besides, students answered a questionnaire for assessing their opinion regarding course's format.