Ag Geek Speak
GK Technology Inc Team Members, Jodi Boe and Sarah Lovas talk about precision agriculture, agriculture mapping, agronomy and drainage.
Ag Geek Speak
8. Code, Sheep, and Field Management: How Hudson Fuller is Revolutionizing ADMS pt. 2
Hudson Fuller, computer scientist and GK Technologies' newest software developer, discusses the upcoming ADMS software updates and his agricultural background while sharing insights into his current projects and future aspirations.
• Working on transitioning ADMS to the new .NET framework after Microsoft's discontinuation of the current framework
• Emphasizes that users will notice minimal differences with the update, possibly just crisper-looking buttons
• Explains the importance of diverse bug testing as programmers tend to test consistently while users interact with software unpredictably
• Began his agricultural journey at age three showing Baby Doll Southdown sheep at the Watertown Farm Show
• Showed various sheep breeds throughout his youth including full-blooded Southdowns and Hampshires
• Currently enhancing the Field Info tab in ADMS to automatically generate field boundaries and import NAIP images
• Developing XML export functionality for field information to improve data sharing and accessibility
• Lives with two other GK Technology employees – his parents Paul (drainage expert) and Kendra (server data management)
• Interested in future development of proprietary data collection using camera, radar, or lidar technology
• Joining the product development team brings exciting new possibilities for GK's precision agriculture tools
https://gktechinc.com/
And now it's time for a Geek Speak with GK Technologies, sarah and Jody, friends and I can't wait to get in the fields again.
Speaker 2:No, I can't wait to get in the fields again.
Speaker 3:Welcome back to Ag Geek Speak and to the second part of our conversation with the GK Technologies newest employee, Hudson Fuller. He is a computer scientist out of Clark, South Dakota, and in the first part of the episode we had the pleasure of talking about Hudson's background with baseball and computer science and talked a little bit about the ADAPT standard. In this second part we're really excited to talk more about Hudson's background in agriculture and and, of course, talk more about exporting all geeky stuff about the computer science, of what we do in.
Speaker 1:ADMS. And what is he working on now at GK2? We haven't even scratched the surface on that one yet.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so everything that I'm working on right now is for the upcoming change to the NET release, because the NET framework is getting discontinued by Windows, so we need to make a move with ADMS. So it's all going to be the exact same software, but a lot of things on the background have changed just because of slight changes in how Microsoft is choosing to run things.
Speaker 1:Just so the whole audience knows like right now, jodi and I actually are in the background playing around with the new releases that aren't released to everybody yet. So the stuff that Hudson and all the other programmers work on all of us that do mapping we will work with those versions in the background. All of us that do mapping, we will work with those versions in the background, and I can attest to you that they feel very similar to the old-fashioned. I highly doubt that you're going to notice any differences, and if there are any slight ones, so far I've really enjoyed them.
Speaker 3:So it looks really nice. You might see some crisper buttons that have a little bit higher resolution, which is awesome. I love it. But what I wanted to ask, what is like? What is NET?
Speaker 2:Like is it important to know? As like base users, or like when I hear NET as like a basic computer user, someone that doesn't know a lot about the computer science side. What do I need to know about it? You really don't need to know anything. It's just, it's something that Microsoft. It's the same as the change from Windows 10 to 11. There's going to be a few minor differences that might get noticed, but as a whole they both work at functionally the same level.
Speaker 1:The fiery trash can of death button is still there.
Speaker 2:That is an important change that will not leave.
Speaker 1:That's so. Don't worry, there's fiery trash. Canada still exists. And it is spelled correctly, oh did we update the spelling on it now?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so after last yeareryl noticed it last year at the retreat that fiery was spelled wrong.
Speaker 3:after looking at it once pretty sure it's been like that for like north of a decade, yes, and so I think very shortly after the retreat last year daryn did change the spelling back to the correct I'm using air quotes here of what the correct spelling of fiery is good job, programmers good job that is not exactly I was gonna say that is not a dig at anybody, because no, I know, I've looked at that button and I've never noticed.
Speaker 1:I've been using the software since 2006 and I never noticed it until last summer, when Shara pointed it out.
Speaker 3:So okay, so like with that, what does that kind of involve, Like making that transition? What are some of the things that you're thinking about and working on to make sure that that transition is successful?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so it's. It's a lot of user feedback. The bug fixes are things that we built the code and right away it built, which means that it will run. However, there are going to be a lot of things in there that we don't know that will end up making it crash or not function in the way that it's supposed to to the user, especially as it did in the NET framework version, the framework that everyone is used to. It's going to be a change that will. It'll take some time and I know that once it does finally get fully released, there'll be way more issues found than just the few people that are using it now, and it's probably going to be something as simple as one line of code in there that will fix that bug.
Speaker 3:It's just something that changed that we didn't realize changed here at GK you might get a lock screen or something where we couldn't really predict on our end that would happen if somebody did that out in the real world. That kind of thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, something just like that. Or it might be something as simple as, say, you have your shape file and then you managed to quadruple click on it because you didn't think it actually clicked. There are some things like that that in the code might have gotten built into the new one that we didn't think we ever had to even account for. It's going to be simple things that no one even realized they messed up, but it will end up breaking something.
Speaker 1:You know, one of the things that I think is really fun about my job here is that the programmers, hudson, develop stuff and then pretty much they ask all of us in sales to like use their new creations on our day-to-day life and try to break them and then tell them when we break them, and so I really enjoy that. You know, seeing all the new stuff that's coming out and the new ideas and how it all flows, and yeah, it's pretty fun and I will say I do like how that new software feels. I really do. It feels very nice.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it's super important to have outside bug testers other than us programmers, because we know how it's supposed to work. We're probably going to do the same three things in a row every time when we're testing it ourselves, and then, when someone else does it, they're going to try and do it in a different way, and sometimes it's going to work. Other times it's just not going to work how we envisioned it and we need to make it so that it's user-friendly.
Speaker 1:That is one of the best explanations that I think I have ever heard for that concept of trying to make sure we're getting everything tested.
Speaker 3:Yeah, because the thing is, too, is like. I'm spending a lot of time watching the training videos right now and we constantly say in every one of them, like how there's different ways to do all the things that we do. There's a couple of things where you do have to follow the instructions step-by-step, and that's fine. That's how every software works. But there's different ways to approach things, and I know teaching people about how to use it too, somebody might think differently about how to click things in order. Whatever. As people use ADMS, the NET version, they're gonna be using it in different ways than what we think you know might be the order of operations for getting something done.
Speaker 1:Well, and, jodi, I don't know how you do this when you're teaching people, but, like when I'm working with people to teach them, I have used the term there's more than one way to skin a cat in here before, because there is there's a number of different ways to go about trying to accomplish what you need to accomplish, and that's okay. Actually, sometimes one method works better in one agricultural system versus another for different reasons, and the agricultural systems that we're fitting into these days are pretty vast when you take a look at across the United States of America and Canada and all the different places that we're getting into. So, hudson, speaking of agriculture, you know we talked on the previous episode about your background with baseball, but why don't you tell us a little bit about your agricultural background? Just let us know, because it you've been from Clark pretty much your whole life.
Speaker 2:Yeah, my whole life.
Speaker 1:Rural South Dakota then. So at the very least you were geographically surrounded by agriculture. But why don't you tell us a little bit more about your background?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it probably started when I was around three years old and for Christmas my grandma decided to get me a baby doll. South down sheep they're a miniature breed of sheep. They come in black and white and sometimes they'll end up with a gray. And I showed that lamb at the Watertown Farm Show that winter. And that was the first time I'd really done anything with agriculture other than maybe being out at the farm and carrying my bucket or whatever it may have been, but that's the first real memory of agriculture I have. And then from there it was. I showed sheep every year at the Watertown Farm Show when I was able to, but at the South Dakota State Fair up until I graduated high school.
Speaker 3:With your bucket. I know nothing about cheap. The only thing I remember about cheap is what my fiance's told me is that if you carry a bucket of feed, they'll shove their heads in there and they won't let you move until you give them the food. I don't know.
Speaker 2:Is that true? That's pretty true. That's pretty close to true. When I was little I had a little a mini bucket that a two or three year old could carry and I would just walk along, grandma, with a grandma and grandpa, and especially the, the lambs and the bottle lambs they love trying to get in there, get into that little bucket that I was holding that's so cute and you say miniature sheep and I think that would probably just be the cutest thing. They are probably the cutest thing.
Speaker 3:We might have to have one of those as the cover art for this, this episode. We'll see. We'll see how that goes. But what? What other species? Like? Did you always show miniatures? Or like were there other species that you showed over time?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so once I was of the, always show miniatures or like were there other species that you showed over time? Yeah so once I was of the, once I was of the size to at least be able to kind of control a full-grown sheep, I started showing, uh, full-blooded, full-blooded southdowns and they're, they're a meat sheep, they and I, we show them as a breeding sheep to make more for other people. Basically, from there it was. I showed those for three or four years and my cousin Jeremy showed at Hampshire's and we didn't want to show against each other and that's why we both had the two different species and then good reasons yep.
Speaker 2:And then grandma decided that she was going to get rid of the south downs and just only have the hampshires and the baby dolls. So then I ended up just moving over and only having the hampshires and the miniature sheep the two basically ends of the spectrum. We have sheep that'll end up at 200 250 pounds. Sometimes then we'll have the little miniatures that the big ones will be a hundred, but they're usually not quite that big oh cute.
Speaker 2:So they're like the size of when they're fully grown, like maybe of a big dog think about as long as a lab and they're thicker than a lab like thick like a bulldog, long like a lab and as tall as I don't know three feet tall that's cute.
Speaker 1:You could like almost have them in the house if you could get some.
Speaker 2:People do wait really no, not in the house but they do have them on little acreages, kind of like lawnmowers some people oh, that's cool.
Speaker 1:Jody's thinking about this.
Speaker 3:Now for her farm yeah I would like a different lawn uh control method. I I say this because last night we got a new clothesline and I literally clothes on myself on the lawnmower. Last night which which Garth and I both joked with each other we're like we can't make sure you put it down when you're ready to mow the lawn, because we don't want to get clotheslined, ha ha ha. And then, like the first time I pulled the lawnmower out this year, I literally clothesline myself. So yeah, I would take a, I would take a shot, sorry for that aside.
Speaker 3:Did you like showing one of them over the other, or like did you have?
Speaker 2:a favorite breed to show? Not really I. I like showing them both. They're completely different having to bend over to show them versus having to make sure they don't run me over. It was two completely different, two completely different uh ideas showing them, but no, they were both pretty fun did you consider a middle ofof-the-road breed? The south down, kind of was the middle-of-the-road breed.
Speaker 1:Okay, yeah, and so now? So you had small, medium, large, and now it's just small and large.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:Okay. Well, there's the breakdown. There's a lot about sheep. Have you ever thought about precision agriculture and sheep and how you would use um computers to manage sheep?
Speaker 2:they on large scale feedlots. They kind of do okay they. They have a whole bunch of software that's controlling how much they get fed, especially on in places where it's more of an indoor style feed lot, which happens a lot more down south, where it's hot all of the time and there's I. I don't even know how it works, but I know that it controls exactly how much gets poured based on how much weight they want to gain per day that's kind of fun, fun.
Speaker 1:We still need you over in field management agriculture Just saying so.
Speaker 3:speaking of field management, it sounds like there's another project you're working on with an ADMS that deals with field info. Do you want to talk a little bit about what that is in ADMS and then also what you're working on?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so the idea of the field info is to get a whole bunch of information about the data or about the field that the user would input. So that would be things like the boundary of the field, the size of the field and so many other different things that are going to end up being involved, and right now I am working on the ability to automatically fill all of that out into an XML file. It makes it so. When you select the boundary and put it into this tool, it will bring up a NAEP image of that field so that you can see exactly what it looks like. And there are so many different little things that could go one way, could go the other way, but right now it's all about automatically bringing up the field boundary and a picture of that field when you open that field in ADMS, so that you do not have to go and manually click the image of that field and the boundary of that field for it to show up to the user.
Speaker 1:That's cool.
Speaker 2:Well, that's fun.
Speaker 3:So, it sounds like instead of having to you know you probably still have to create a new folder for the field, but instead of having to create a boundary and pull in a NAIP image to get it and pull in a NAEP image to get it, like an image that you can draw a good geo-reference boundary, if you had the information, like the legal description of where that field is, a lot of this could be just generated for you yes, and that is the next step in the project right now.
Speaker 2:Yes, and that is the next step in the project right now is by knowing what state, county and then the township specifically, it would pull in a nape of that township and you could go draw on the nape where your boundary would be and you could save your nape that way, instead of trying to go from a whole huge nape image to zoom into the perfect spot to draw your boundary. It would make things way better for the user in the future.
Speaker 3:Sweet, if we can save clicks any place, I'm game.
Speaker 1:Especially for that kind of thing where we just need to have that generic data. You know, we got to have that every time we're starting to work with a field. So it would just be so handy to have that like right away. And I don't know like if the listeners know, but right now in the software we have a field info tab, right, hudson?
Speaker 2:Yes, and it's been there for about eight years and it really doesn't do much.
Speaker 1:And so that's really what you're working on right now, right, that's where all of this is getting incorporated.
Speaker 2:Yes, this will all get incorporated into the field info tab so that, even if you wanted, you could export an XML from that field info tab so you could see everything that every note you have for that field and every different little detail.
Speaker 3:So, speaking of XML, what is an XML? And I hear that a lot of times, like with APIs, they'll move XML back and forth, but like what is that? I don't know what that is.
Speaker 2:So an XML is a way to have. It's basically like a list of bullet points and then after the bullet point is the data associated with that bullet point. So you would have a boundary and then after a bullet point it's in a different format. When you look at it. It will have 20 different points that are the edge of that boundary in the XML file and then it does the same for the state it will have. Whatever state is that field is associated with the XML file, it'll be state bullet point and then say South Dakota, and it will do that for a whole bunch of different data and it's used across all different applications within agriculture and then just everywhere. There are some times when you'll download something from the internet and it will come in an XML file and it's just a different style of notation. It's very similar to the JSON formats that you'll see if you ever export a JSON format.
Speaker 3:Is an XML like a csv and just like I don't know how does it compare to like a csv, like a basic excel export kind of thing it's similar, but it would have the ability to have the same properties as a csv.
Speaker 2:It's a language, well, xml. I don't know what the x stands for, but it's markup language, okay, and it is about making the information in your file have a tag associated with it, just like a heading or a header in an Excel file with all the data below it. Instead, it's going left to right instead of up down.
Speaker 3:Gotcha Okay. So like you might get from a soil test laboratory, like here's your nitrate results, that is the tab, or like the bullet point and then all the data after. That would be like the nitrate results for that, that data that you're grid, grid sample data.
Speaker 2:Right like you, would have a bullet point that's nitrogen, and then going all the way across, going horizontal you would have your nitrogen data yes, if it was exported in an XML style, that's what it would look like. Probably there's so many different ways to build it, but the generalization is in horizontal format.
Speaker 1:This is very educational. I'm smarter for having had this conversation. Thank you, Hudson, and actually thank you, Jodi. I appreciate your interpretation of the explanation.
Speaker 3:You're welcome for not knowing anything about computer science, so that I can ask what's going on.
Speaker 1:Thank you for your patience, hudson. We're geeks, don't worry, we're just old geeks, I guess or at least I am Sorry. Jodi, didn't mean to lump you on there.
Speaker 3:No, I mean this is kind of a little off the side too, but before you went to college, hudson, I'm curious in high school did you learn about computer science concepts, like, are there things that you're using in your current job that you learned as like a computer science class in high school, like XML, c, sharp, that kind of thing?
Speaker 2:No, not in terms of what I'm using now. I took a web design class I think it was my sophomore year and it was using Dreamweaver and moving the things around where you wanted them and try and make a website look good, but other than that, I didn't learn anything about computer science in high school. I did learn about the agriculture side in high school through my FFA programs and my agriculture classes, though.
Speaker 3:Okay, the important stuff.
Speaker 2:Yes, it's all important important stuff.
Speaker 1:Yes, it's all important, so no shade to other classes, okay? So I, I, and if you don't want to answer these questions, this is fine and we'll just cut them out but, um, I, I'm gonna ask. So there's actually three of you living in the same house right now working for gk technology, right, yes, you got your mom and your dad and you. So, holy Hannah, that's like that's a lot of GK in one household. What is it like on a day-to-day basis working with you know, living with three of your co-workers who happen to be your parents?
Speaker 2:You know it's interesting, but a lot of the times it's nice because I don't have to call someone to ask a question about ADMS and how someone that uses it would actually want it to be used in the future. I just walk about 20 steps and ask the questions and it's nice actually being able to figure out okay, this is how shape files look and are used visually in ADMS. How can we make them do this in the background, or something that would be nice for everyone to have?
Speaker 3:How many computers are running in your house?
Speaker 2:Four.
Speaker 1:That's it.
Speaker 2:Four computers running, but I think there's about 10 monitors, 10 screens there. It is not including, like phones and ipads and tablets and stuff you have things that are used for somewhat work applications four computers with about 10 monitors hey, for those of us with the gK Field Mapper app, be careful with that.
Speaker 3:How do you run your routers? I'm curious. Do you have mesh extensions? Again, I'm saying words that I don't know what they mean. Do you have to take any special consideration to hardware to make sure everything works quickly in the house?
Speaker 2:and we, once I came back home to start working, we had to do a router upgrade. We just didn't have the speed for me to be able to work and my dad to be able to work. My mom remotes in, so all the internet stuff is actually on the other side at the servers, but it all runs through the basement. And then the router is now moved a lot closer to me and I am hardwired to the router. And then there is a second switch that is ran through the basement over towards my dad's desk where his phone is connected, and then he also has his laptop connected to it as well.
Speaker 3:As again, like as someone who is curious about these things but doesn't get to ask what is a switch Like? Is it just attached to your router? And then, what is that?
Speaker 2:A switch is it's? It's basically an extension of the router. It allows you to connect more items into your router. They all come from the central modem that comes from the telecommunications company. A lot of people's it's in the basement or somewhere that it's not going to get directly accessed all the time and then you can run multiple routers off of that for, say, your wi-fi access. But then you can also run a switch. That is just a direct extension of your modem cool.
Speaker 3:So it's like a. It's like a usb uh splitter like where you've got you need more ports to get access to your router or like your usb port, so you just put like a splitter in it and you can get access to the the port okay, yeah, it's the exact same concept as that cool.
Speaker 1:That's pretty neat. So, and just for the audience listening out there, I know we talked a little bit about Hudson's family last time, but his dad is Paul Fuller, who is a drainage expert, and his mom is Kendra, who actually is responsible for helping to make sure that we've got all of the data on the server so that when you go in and download data from our servers it's there. She makes that stuff happen, and she makes that stuff happen in very much so real time. We're very fortunate to have her doing that job. So that's. There's a lot of stuff going on in the fuller household it's a fuller house.
Speaker 3:It is a fuller house. It is a fuller house. This is why they revoke my pun like allowance. Sorry, everybody.
Speaker 1:Okay. So, hudson, if you could program anything in precision agriculture, anything that you wanted to, based on just what you've done right now, what would that be?
Speaker 2:And I would have no idea how to do it right now, but it would be something with using a camera or some sort of form of like radar, lidar, some sort of machine that we could program that to get data for ourselves. Something along that line would be, if it was absolutely anything, no restrictions. That's what I would want to try and do, just because I think it's something that would be very interesting to figure out and learn.
Speaker 1:So in other words, like how to log data and turn it into either like elevation data or imagery data that we could just store for ourselves, produce our own data for use. Yes, awesome, okay, it's good to have dreams, who knows? It is fun to think about, though, and imagine you know all of the different things that a person could do and places to go with with whatever you want to create.
Speaker 1:You know I think we're incredibly fortunate here at GK with Darren, of course, and Travis and Hudson really working together to try to create all of the new products that are going forward.
Speaker 1:Our product development team has really expanded with your addition here at GK and I think we're very excited about that. I know I always get excited about all the new little tools and things and you know when I hear you feel you know talk about the field info tab and your ideas for where that's going, I just can't impress upon how exciting that's going to be for all of us to have access to that sort of immediate turnaround as clicks just way more efficient on the software. So that's pretty exciting stuff. I think GK users everywhere are going to be really excited to know that we have had an expansion of our product development. Yes, so it's just exciting to see where all the new things are going. So I guess, with that, welcome to the team, hudson. We are so excited that you're a part of GK Technology. We can't wait to see where things go into the future. And, jody, I guess at GK Technology we have a map and an app for that.