The Imagine Cup Journey- Part 3: "The Long Road Ahead"

The end goal was simple enough.  Do whatever it would take to get into the finals and go to Egypt to compete.  The actual planning and execution was nothing close to being clear cut or clean.  Let me explain.  Simply put none of us had taken up a project of this scale and none of us understood what really took to succeed.  We all had classes and some of the team members even had jobs.  

Taking on this project meant time was needed to be set aside outside of our workload and that is not something easy considering that everyone has different schedules.  Once we got the idea for our project some what determined, it was now the time to start mapping out what needed to be done.  First off, this being a greenhouse project, we needed a greenhouse or somewhere to grow our plants and measure the results.  Approaching January we were unable to build or buy a greenhouse so the next best thing was to search for one.  We found a greenhouse far from our main campus and that took us nearly a hour and a half to travel to.  It had to be done and it was worth the journey.  Over there we talked with professors specializing in plants and natural environment. We were students in the plant science before we designed or engineered anything.  We studied the conditions, the environments, lighting conditions, anything and everything that would effect the life of plants.  Never did we think we would be taking out books about tomato growing conditions or medical facts about what causes iron loss.  These new knowledge was all made possible by ImagineCup and I encourage you to visit and learn something new!