12/9/08 - 12/12/08 - Photos from the Seed Expo in Chicago

Our team with our poster!



We received a lot of information about how the machines that we saw there worked.



We attended a private meeting with some of the top engineers at Almaco, a company that produces research threshers.



We also had dinner with Dr. Jeff Dahlberg from the National Sorghum Producers and Mr. Tim Lust who gave us a lot of helpful tips and a taste of Chicago's famous deep-dish pizza! Yummmm!



When it was all over, we were tired, but we came away with a ton of ideas and we hope to implement them into our machine. Again, thank you to all the people who helped us, we can't thank you enough!!

12/9/08 - 12/12/08 - The American Seed Trade Association's Seed Expo 2008

Attending the American Seed Trade Association's Seed Expo 2008 and 63rd Corn & Sorghum Research Conference was a fantastic experience for the Teen Technology MIT InvenTeam. Many thanks to all – your thoughts and advice were very beneficial to our research and developments. Thank you to Dr. Jeff Dahlberg for making such an experience possible!

In particular, it was very enriching to the team to speak with representatives from all branches of the industry. The vast breadth of the conference encompassed everything from digital seed-scanning software to colossal combines. Such a variety allowed our team to gain a comprehensive outlook on the agricultural industry as a whole – an outlook that could not be gained by merely reading encyclopedias or perusing websites.

The representatives of all companies were particularly helpful. Even if our research did not pertain to their branch of the industry, they gave us useful information about their own projects and experiences, and also directed us to individuals who worked on projects relevant to our own. The MIT InvenTeam would like to again sincerely thank them for their efforts. There is no substitute in the realm of invention for an expert's insight on a project idea.