Agricultural Sciences & Natural Resources Agricultural Systems Technology (AGST)

Description: Fundamental principles of mechanics, heat, electricity, magnetism and electromagnetism and their relationship to energy utilization and conservation. Principles then applied to problem situations in agriculture and life sciences.

Description: Laboratory experiments on mechanics, heat, electricity, magnetism and electromagnetism and their relationship to energy utilization and conservation in agriculture and life sciences.

Description: Basic principles of describing and evaluating mechanized systems relevant to agriculture, food, energy, and water. Problem solving using systems-thinking. Exploration of major and career opportunities. Academic success and planning.

Description: Basic theory of electrical circuits, utilization of electric energy in production, processing, and residential applications. Theory and application of direct current (DC) and alternating current (AC) principles, switch and outlet wiring, wiring installations, selection of safe and adequate circuit devices, service equipment sizing, conductor sizing, electric motor operation and their control are covered. Develop switch and relay circuit schematics and build both DC and AC functional circuits. Ladder logic diagrams will be studied to understand the basic controls implemented in industrial automation.

Description: Operational characteristics of IC engines, field, materials-handling, and processing machines and their components. Includes analyses, estimations, and objective comparisons of performance; principles for adjustment and calibration of metering systems; and cost-effective sizing of machines. Exercises include using ASABE Standards and available reports of machine performance (tractor test reports, etc.).

Description: Professional communication of technical information. Strategies for effective teamwork to plan and execute technical projects. Fundamentals of project planning in a team-based context. Introduction to quantitative techno-economic analysis to support decision-making related to agricultural systems technology. Professional ethics in context of project management.

Description: Student participation in physical systems applications. May include participation in mechanization-related areas of agribusiness, production practices, and processing operations; research in laboratory, greenhouse and field; or preparation of teaching materials.

Description: Overview of the digital agriculture technologies and techniques to support crop and livestock production systems. Emphasis on data life cycle including generation, collection, storage, processing, visualization, and analysis. Hands-on experiences with agricultural IoT, sensing, data processing, and decision making with open-source programming tools,

Description: Production facilities for livestock and poultry will be developed with emphasis on building and feedlot layout, ventilation, heating and cooling systems; energy utilization; and construction materials and methods.

Description: Watershed hydrology, soil erosion, erosion control, water management, and land surveying and mapping. Includes rainfall-runoff relationships; determination of watershed characteristics; terraces, waterways, vegetative filters, and residue management; ponds, wetlands, non-point source pollution control, and water conservation; profile and topographic surveying.

Description: Analysis of processing and handling operations. Chemical and physical characteristics of agricultural products. Application of pyschrometrics. Power requirements, capacities, and efficiencies of drying and conveying systems. Discussion of safety issues, logistics, and survey of industry technologies.

Description: Fundamentals of food engineering including material and energy balances, fluid mechanics, heat transfer and mass transfer.

Description: The companion animal industry, products, processes and career opportunities.

Description: Practical experience, directed learning, and career exploration and development in a selected business, industry, agency, or educational institution.

Description: Identifies safety and health risks in industrial work environments. Focus on how managers and supervisors meet their responsibilities for providing a safe workplace for their employees. Includes the identification and remediation of workplace hazards.

Description: The science, engineering, economics and business of converting biorenewable resources into bioenergy and biobased products. Biorenewable concepts as they relate to drivers of change, feedstock production, economics, transportation and logistics, and marketing.

Description: Systems, components, operation practices, and safety procedures used in the chemical application industry. Liquid and granular application systems and respective components will be studied along with procedures for equipment sizing and maintenance, minimizing drift, system calibration, and safe handling-transportation-storage-disposal and spill clean-up of agrichemicals.

Description: Theory and application of fluids under controlled pressure to perform work in mobile and industrial applications. Positive displacement (PD) pumps, linear and rotary hydraulic actuators (hydraulic cylinders and motors), valves, and electric over hydraulic systems will be studied in detail. Fluid power circuit development on both hydraulic benches and computer simulated environments will be performed with emphasis on circuit analysis, and system troubleshooting.

Description: Application of sensors for measurement of process control variables and implementation of microcomputer-based measurement and control systems. Basic electrical and electronic instrumentation plus control of electrically, pneumatically and/or hydraulically powered systems.

Description: Principles and concepts of site-specific management. Evaluation of geographic information systems for crop production practices. Practical experience with hardware and software necessary for successful application of information affecting crop management.

Description: Principles and procedures involved in testing agricultural equipment and tractors. Actual test planned, scheduled, conducted and reported. Test may be based upon procedures used at the Nebraska Tractor Testing Laboratory or involve other equipment being used for research in the department.

Description: Introduction to the basics of embedded controller programming, and the development of Controller Area Network (CAN) bus systems in agricultural applications. Interfacing sensors with analog and digital signals, closed loop control of actuators, transmission and reception of CAN messages, programming of CAN messages in a distributed controller set up for sensor data acquisition, and actuator control will be studied.

Description: Irrigation management and the selection, evaluation, and improvement of irrigation systems. Includes soil-water measurement, crop water use, irrigation scheduling, irrigation efficiency, measurement of water flow, irrigation systems, groundwater and wells, pumping systems, applying chemicals with irrigation systems, and environmental and water resource considerations.

Description: Team-based activities to evaluate integration of technology into, and utilization of resources for, agricultural systems; perform technical and economic evaluations; make technical and economic recommendations; and develop professional written and oral reports. Topics include technology system performance and management, project scheduling and planning, cost estimation, reliability analysis, and risk assessment.

Description: Unit operations and their applications to food processing.

Description: Discussion and practical application of principles and practices of measuring meteorological and related variables near the earth's surface including temperature, humidity, precipitation, pressure, radiation and wind. Performance characteristics of sensors and modern data collection methods are discussed and evaluated.

Description: Holistic approach to the selection and analysis of planning strategies for protecting water quality from nonpoint sources of contamination. Introduction to the use of methods of analyzing the impact of strategies on whole systems and subsystems; for selecting strategies; and for evaluating present strategies.

Description: Subject matter in emerging areas of Mechanized Systems Management not covered in other courses within the curriculum. Topics, activities, and delivery methods vary.

Description: Individual or group projects in research, literature review, or extension of course work under the supervision and evaluation of a departmental faculty member.

Description: Conduct a scholarly research project and write a University Honors Program or undergraduate thesis.