Tag: Tandon

Green Grant Update: Air Quality Monitoring

by Caspar Lant

This past summer, I flew to NYU’s Shanghai campus for two weeks. This was the culmination of a nearly two-year long project to develop a prototype of a low-cost air quality monitoring network. Ironically, the project both culminated and originated at NYU Shanghai. A few years back, I did a study abroad there. I was in the Cafeteria and started chatting with a fellow student about some circuit diagrams I had seen over her shoulder. She told me they were for an independent study class she was taking with a visiting professor (Kevin Cromar, now my advisor on the Green Grant project). As she explained it, the diagram was an existing design for an air quality monitor, which over the course of the semester she would be building from the ground-up with the rest of the class. I rushed to the professor’s office to ask if I could take the course as well.  Luckily, even though it was a week after the enrollment deadline, he obliged! Read more

Urban Food Lab First Annual Research Expo and Fundraiser

by Sophie Gumbs

On Monday, 11/18 from 6-9pm in the Tandon MakerSpace, the Urban Food Lab held its very first Annual Research Expo and Fundraiser! The Urban Food Lab is a Vertically Integrated Project in the NYU VIP Program, in which students from 9 separate departments conduct their own research on vertical farming as well as conduct their own farming. The Urban Food Lab is an aquaponic vertical farming class in which students come up with solutions to challenges in modern farming. It is located in the basement of Tandon MakerSpace and is open to undergrads, who are provided with grad student mentors. The Lab is currently funded by the Office of Sustainability Green Grants Program and is fundraising until December 3rd, as its Green Grant will expire at the start of 2020. As part of the Lab, students learn to implement sustainable project designs, and intro and exit exams demonstrate that students learn, both actively and passively, about aquaponic and hydroponic farming throughout the course. Skills around sustainability are brought outside of the farm itself through students’ extra credit opportunities to apply sustainable practices in small ways in the broader community. The class provides a gateway to academic research and entrepreneurship for many students.

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