Pictured Left to Right: Shamsuddin Khan, Jerry Mahammitt, and Dr. Leshell Hatley (all of Coppin State University) standing behind their Rooftop Garden Robotics Prototype after winning 1st place at the White HBCU/TCU Maker & Innovation Challenge, June 20, 2016.

Sponsored by The Juxtopia Group and its leader Dr. Jayfus Doswell, a native of Baltimore, the Lab for Artificial Intelligence and its Applications (LAIA) at Coppin State University team designed the Rooftop Garden Robotics project and with it, won 1^st 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 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 robot and garden portion and submitted to the White House HBCU/TCU Maker & Innovation Challenge.  You can view more images from the event in our blog and gallery section here.  Research and design for the project continues and will soon involve students from area high schools including Coppin Academy and Frederick Douglass High School.

Pictured Left to Right: Coppin State University’s Jerry Mahammitt, Dr. Leshell Hatley, and Shamsuddin Khan accepting the 1^st Place Award for the White House HBCU Maker & Innovation Challenge, June 20, 2016.

Coppin State University’s LAIA wins 1st Place in the 2016 HBCU Making & Innovation Challenge (Image of Award)