Reid Watson

Undergraduate Fellow

“Engineering is a tool that can be used anywhere. To me, ecology is something that really interests me, so personally, I’m very happy to be doing what we’re doing.”

Could you elaborate on the connection between engineering and ecology research?

“There’s lots of different fields of engineering. I think that the engineering design process is a very broad problem solving method. I’m in the Engineering School but I’ve always been very interested in sustainability, conservation, camping, hiking, and just being outside. I really wanted a position in the Tyson fellowship as soon as I heard about it from the sustainability circles I’m in at WashU.

I actually study computer science engineering, so I don’t study mechanical engineering, which is something that I miss a lot. I like to study art as well, which has similarities to engineering in that you need a creative mindset to solve problems.”

What work has your team been doing this summer?

“All of the projects we are working on are for the other research groups at Tyson. Natalie Mueller and her group are trying to re-domesticate ancient crops that were lost to time. She has a lot of small, experimental beds where she’s trying to cultivate these crops using their wild descendants. The issue is that they’re not domesticated plants so they are pretty hard to work with. The seeds are very small and they vary in size a lot. The winnowing process is trying to separate all the seeds from the chaff. Because of the small and inconsistent size of the seeds, they’ve been doing them by hand which is very time consuming. They have been in contact with chefs in the St. Louis area about cooking them but they don’t have the volume of seeds to make that happen.

What we’re trying to do is build them some kind of winnowing machine to deliver to them so they can expedite the process.

So basically, I plug it into my vacuum here (via Zoom, Reid shows his winnowing machine prototype, made from a vacuum at home] and I put all the seeds in the chamber and kind of shake it. Then the less dense material gets sucked through, into this chamber. The seed motor part stays over here and I can control the air pressure by covering the holes in the back. It’s not perfect, but we’re trying to find a way to do that for Natalie Mueller’s group.”

Reid worked with Jackson Potter’s Team ElectroMech during summer 2020. Learn more about their plans for electro-mechanical design solutions for ecological research here.