The 2025 Farm Robotics Challenge, hosted by the University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources (UC ANR) and the AI Institute for Next Generation Food Systems (AIFS), showcased innovative solutions for agricultural challenges. Over 20 collegiate teams from the U.S. and abroad participated, competing for more than $50,000 in prizes.
The top honor, the $20,000 Innovation Award, went to the Precision Horticulture Lab from the University of Georgia. Their winning project featured a fully automated spraying drone platform with a mobile launchpad equipped with a water tank, chemical reservoirs, a mixer, and a generator, all controlled via a smartphone.
The $10,000 Productivity Award went to Team ʻĀINA from the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. Their system uses a drone and robot combination to identify pineapple blooms, improving harvest efficiency for local farms.
Carnegie Mellon University's Appleseed Labs earned the $5,000 Excellence in Regenerative Agriculture Award for their Johnny B. Root robot, which autonomously plants seedlings to support reforestation.
The University of Minnesota's FarmGuard team won the $5,000 Excellence in Small Farms Technology Award for developing a deer deterrence system using unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to protect crops.
Two Judges' Choice Impact Awards of $2,500 each, sponsored by Google.org, were awarded to Purdue University's PURT UAS Team and the Salty Blue Hens from the University of Delaware. Purdue's team developed an autonomous tassel detection system for cornfields, while the Salty Blue Hens automated soil salinity and moisture analysis using drones and ground-based robotics.
The competition emphasized collaboration between students, farmers, and industry experts. Gabriel Youtsey, UC ANR's chief innovation officer, praised the participants, saying, "These students aren't just solving problems; they're redefining what's possible."
Farm-ng, the technology partner, provided its Amiga modular robotic platform, along with guidance and technical support for the teams. "Supporting the challenge is about empowering a generation to build tools that work for real people in real fields," said Brendan Dowdle, CEO of Farm-ng.
The event highlighted a diverse range of solutions, including ground-based robots for reforestation, drone-based crop monitoring, and automated deer deterrence. It concluded with select teams earning opportunities to present their innovations at the FIRA USA 2025 conference and the Plug and Play Tech Center Summit.
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