For the past four years, Ag Leader has donated electrical components for the team tractor. Creating the team tractor is a process of designing a fabricated ¼ scale tractor from the ground up, in approximately one year. The project starts with the engineering design process. Members start with an idea, model 3D design work, speck out components, build, manufacture, and perform most of the required casing machining. Once the tractor is complete, the team takes it to the annual competition.
“Our club relies heavily on sponsors to complete these tractor builds,” Wilson says. “Through these donations, we are enabling our members to strive for whatever designs come to their mind without the determent of limited financial components.”
Iowa State University Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) International is a student organization comprised of five teams that compete under the SAE International Student Chapter. One of those teams is the Formula Team, which designs, builds, tests, and races a formula-style race car each year to compete at several SAE Series events. As a silver level sponsor for Formula, Ag Leader contributes up to $1,000 toward materials, service donations, and general funding.
While students gain a great deal from these experiences, Ag Leader also benefits from working with students at Iowa State.
“When a university has a computer lab with SMS and/or AgFiniti software, students get a leg up on handling data and using it to make sound farm management decisions,” Morman says. “If these students go back to the family farm as the ‘younger’ generation, they are often tasked with helping to implement precision agriculture on the farm. If they were in an Ag Leader-sponsored computer lab or a university farm where Ag Leader was present, brand recognition and familiarity with Ag Leader can often lead to a farm using Ag Leader.”