The time has come again for Teagasc’s Science Week, aka the Festival of Farming and Food, one of autumn's most interesting annual events. Organised in November, the event always includes a variety of activities, talks and exhibitions aiming to educate, inspire and excite children and adults.

Continuing the tradition, project SoftGrip participated in the inspiring week with the contribution of our consortium partner Teagasc and, more specifically, Andrea Uccello (Research Officer), who is deeply involved in the project’s efforts of modernising current mushroom harvesting practices. As a little throwback, last year, Andrea contributed the insightful video, “A Day in the Life of a Scientist”, to Teagasc’s Science Week on the present conditions in the mushroom industry and the vital help robotics can offer when it comes to mushroom picking.

This year, Andrea was part of the “60 Minute Science” event, where he presented the project’s research and focused on the importance of identifying the factors that impact the quality of mushrooms during picking. These pieces of knowledge are valuable to the SoftGrip engineers who are developing an effective robotic system that will be able to pick mushrooms without damaging or blemishing them.

For the full Science Week schedule, click the link:

https://www.teagasc.ie/about/research--innovation/science-communications-and-outreach/science-week/science-week-2022/