The National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA), a division of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, has awarded Texas State University’s Department of Agricultural Sciences two capacity-building grants for non-land grant colleges.
The NIFA grants, both for $150,000, will support “Empowering Agricultural Mechanics Education, Recruitment and Research,” overseen by Ryan Anderson, Ph.D., an associate professor in the Department of Agricultural Sciences, and “Agriculture Construction and Laboratory Improvement,” overseen by Bradley Borges, an assistant professor of instruction in the Department of Agricultural Sciences.
Both grants will provide equipment for students pursuing degrees such as agricultural mechanics, horticulture and agricultural education.
The education, recruitment and research grant will fund the purchase of three Lincoln VRTEX 360 virtual reality welders. This will allow students to practice welding/cutting techniques in a safe VR environment. The VRTEX 360 is equipped with tools, settings, materials and sounds associated with the welding/cutting process, and it also provides visual cues that coach individuals through the VR welding/cutting process.
“The machines basically do all the coaching the same as if I was standing right there with the student,” Anderson explained. “I give students audio cues and visual cues of get closer or back away, to move faster or move slower, angle in, angle out, that sort of thing. The VR units give them all of the instructions they need to lay down the perfect welds.
“This will help our beginning welders because they really have to build their muscle memory—they need to go over and over and over again,” he said. “This allows them to do that without actually having to be in the welding booth and wasting welding materials and steel. They can build up their speed and consistency before they ever step foot in a welding booth.”
The U.S. is projected to have a shortage of 375,000 welders by 2026. The VR units will allow TXST to develop students’ welding skills more quickly and efficiently to meet this growing demand. Developing those skills in a traditional welding booth could take up to three weeks, but the VR units can potentially accomplish the same learning goals in as little as three hours. TXST has operated an earlier model of the VRTEX 360 for four years with positive results, but the new units are designed to be mobile, which will be a boon for Agricultural Science’s recruiting efforts. The department has also ordered 10 Lincoln Electric Voyage Arc VR headsets to supplement the VRTEX 360 units.
“We plan to take these to all of the agricultural mechanics shows and the major rodeos. We’re going to set up the units and use them to help us recruit at those events,” Anderson said. “We want to get the younger generation excited about going into this field. We’ll get them playing with VR, and while they’re engaged we’ll talk with them, ‘Hey, do you want to pursue a degree in agricultural mechanics? We offer that degree at Texas State.’
“The Lincoln Electric Voyage Arc VR headsets are more traditional VR headsets,” Anderson said. “They can be used by elementary and junior high students to get them thinking about welding as a career pathway.”
The laboratory improvement grant will fund the purchase of seven professional grade combination tool sets for the construction laboratory, as well as table saws, planers, drill presses, sanders, power tools and other woodworking equipment. The existing equipment is a combination of 1980s-era tools and consumer-grade tools, which are not durable enough to withstand the continuous use they are subjected to.
“The new industrial-grade equipment is going to modernize our facility by at least 45 years, which is a great step forward,” Anderson said. “It will allow us to expand and do bigger and larger projects that we were not able to do before because of the capacity of the machines that we had. That’s a great step forward for us.”
Students in the program are assigned to teams, which have a semester-long project to complete. The new equipment will allow these teams to be assigned dedicated tool sets for the first time. This will teach valuable “soft skills” to the students, including maintenance, management and organization of the tools—something that was impossible with the previous communal tool pool.
The NIFA grant program assists institutions in maintaining and expanding their capacity to conduct education, research, outreach and integrated activities relating to agriculture, renewable resources and similar disciplines. Awards funded by this program also address the national challenge to increase the number and diversity of students entering food- and agriculture-related science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) disciplines.
For more information, visit nifa.usda.gov/about-nifa/announcements/nifa-invests-57m-capacity-building-grants-non-land-grant-colleges.