30 

portraits

    »     AMARILLO ISD

chronicle the project. Tracy and Chuck consulted with the students. By 
mid-October the food computer was built and in late November the Nerd 
Famers planted the fi rst seeds. January brought fully-grown, ready-to-eat 
bunches of romaine lettuce. 

Worldwide, projects like this could lead to better food availability. Locally, 

the implications are even more specifi c, as the Nerd Farmers have learned 
from their fi rst crop. “It could solve problems like water consumption in 
an Amarillo, Texas, drought,” says Bay, “No water is wasted in this project 
because none of it evaporates.” 

Th

 ere’s also the idea of the 52-week crop. Th

 e MIT project grows crops 

in climate-controlled “farms” built inside shipping containers, which can be 
stacked. Smaller food computers, like the one at AACAL, are portable and 
aff ordable. “It doesn’t cost nearly as much to do this as it does to maintain 
an entire farm. But you can grow just as much,” says Allton. 

“You can grow watermelon in the desert,” Bay points out.
Th

 e possibilities are as great as their impact, on the future and on the 

Nerd Farmers.  

“I always tell my students never refuse an opportunity, even if it is 

something you know nothing about,” says AACAL engineering teacher 
Wendy Parker, who has been there for every step of the project. “You say 
you’ll do it and you learn how to do it. Th

 at’s what engineers do.”

Th

 at’s certainly what the Nerd Farmers did. “We did it and we don’t know 

anything about farming,” says Luis. 

“None of us have a green thumb,” Allton agrees. Maybe not, but they do 

have fresh, green crops … grown by a computer they built. 

When it comes to building a balsa wood boomilever 

that weighs mere grams, yet is capable of hoisting 33 

pounds of sand, the emerging engineers of Bonham 

Middle School’s Science Olympiad team know the key.  

Crossbeams off er more support to the inside of the structure, the 

team tells Portraits. 

A boomilever, is a structural device built to hold a specifi ed weight at 

a given distance from a vertical surface. A crane, for example, is a real-
world application of a boomilever. Engineering the lightest boomilever 
that can hold the heaviest load is a Science Olympiad event. 

Bonham’s team knows its construction concepts. Th

 ey also know their 

potions and poisons. “Potions and Poisons is all about how elements 
react with each other and the bonds they can form. It’s chemistry,” says 
eighth-grader Michael Carathers. “Th

 ere is also an emphasis on toxic 

elements.”