COLUMBUS, Ohio — There’s a shiny new Case IH MX340 tractor at the Food, Agriculture and Biological Engineering (FABE) Department of The Ohio State University. The tractor, on loan from Wellington Implement, Inc. in Wellington, Ohio, will be used for teaching and research.

“Now we will not only learn about the newest technology in classes, but we will be able to use it in labs,” said student Eric Renner.

The tractor is equipped with GPS, said Andrew “Dewey” Mann, FABE lecturer and research assistant. The research emphasis of Dr. Scott Shearer, professor and chair of the FABE department, will be to put controllers and mechanisms on the tractor to make it autonomous. Shearer recently came to OSU after 25 years at the University of Kentucky where he began his autonomy research.

“The technology exists; it is just a matter of putting it on that tractor,” Mann said.

The tractor will used predominately in the machinery laboratory, he explained. Students will be able to analyze electrical, hydraulic and engine components such as Tier 4 emissions technology. Using a laptop and some simple cabling, they will be able to record Controller Area Network (CAN) data from the tractor.

Also in the lab setting, with the current air exhaust system and a few equipment upgrades, students will be able to test engine performance. Any type of traction and ballasting (weight transfer) demonstrations can be arranged at the nearby Waterman farm. “This would also be a good site for auto-guidance demonstrations (where a student sits in seat and performs straight-line guidance with the machine),” Mann said.

In the Agricultural Systems Management program, courses this quarter are on electronics and hydraulics on ag equipment. That course, which Mann teaches, will use the tractor this quarter.

“In the spring we teach a power and machinery class and it will be used in that class,” Mann said. “In the fall it will be used in a precision agriculture course. Right now it is viewed as another teaching tool and we will use it however we can. The students are going to be exposed to the latest technology.

“We’re always going to have new groups of students. We can come up with new concepts to teach using that tractor. It is limitless.”

The FABE program encompasses students who are interested in food engineering, ag engineering and biological and ecological engineering, so many students will have access to the tractor.

One thing that is unique at OSU is because Ohio is an agriculture state, 40-60 percent of the students will go back to the farm at least part-time. The number is not that high at other universities.

“Other jobs they might do is work at equipment dealerships,” Mann said. “In Precision Ag, we had 32 students and every one of them said they wanted to work with precision technology somehow – they’re very interested in that area. So this tool provides us an opportunity to teach them ‘hands-on’ what they want to pursue in their career.”

Tom Stannard, owner of Wellington Implement, is an alumnus of OSU and saw the loan of the tractor as a way to give back to the community.

“The tractor is on loan to our department for a very small fee,” Mann said. “It is on a year-by-year basis.”