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Agriculture students at ������ now have an additional high-tech industry experience by utilizing a new Raven ^TM Precision Ag Simulator donated to ������ by the New Vision Co-op of Brewster.

The $25,000 cutting-edge simulator will provide students in Precision Agriculture, Agronomy Applicator Technician and other agriculture programs the opportunity to practice a variety of hands-on skills such as custom field application spraying within set GPS boundaries, large equipment steering, in-cab computer display information management, and many other precise farming experiences.

“Our goal is to always educate and understand the new technologies by working with them,” said Josh Hilbrand of New Vision Co-op. “If we can share new technology like this with students, they can experience it now so it’s not new to them when they get into the workforce….” Hilbrand described the simulator as a robust system that takes multiple experiences to truly embrace the various scenarios and troubleshooting challenges that it offers.

“We are fortunate to have industry partners like New Vision Co-op,” said Jeff Miller, Ridgewater dean of instruction. “Their generous donation of the simulator to ������’s Agriculture programs gives our students rich experiences. This will allow students to practice their skills before they get behind the controls of a huge, expensive piece of equipment that is costly to repair. It will also allow us to simulate a variety of conditions students may experience when they are working that they may not experience in a college environment.”

“This simulator will be a great supplement to the use of real application equipment used in our basic custom application classes,” explained Agriculture instructor Curt Yoose.

New Vision Co-op and Josh Hilbrands have been great advocates of agriculture education across the region, Miller explained, and this will assist our Agriculture program to continue to be a high-quality regional leader with unique student experiences. “We appreciate the strong advocacy for educating the next generation of agriculture professionals that New Vision Co-op assists us in.”

What’s extra special about this donation, according to Tammy Howe, Ridgewater Agriculture coordinator, is that the Ridgewater Agriculture Department has been striving to obtain a simulator like this for a few years, and now it’s a reality. She said the department of faculty and students is very grateful for the 50+ industry partners who help make improvements like this possible.

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