John Xu ’25 is programming and flying drones that can analyze agricultural data for his Senior Independent Study. Upper School Math Teacher Andy Stout is the adviser for Xu’s project.

Xu said he chose this topic due to his interest in aviation, which led him to connect it to aspects of agriculture. He is using an autonomous drone to take photos of crops and sort them based on differences in color composition. His goal is to help farmers differentiate between healthy and unhealthy crops without having to survey the entire field.

“This project has three parts to it,” Xu said. “One part is making an autonomously flying drone, the next is making a platform that interfaces with the drones and the last part is making a report summarizing the data gathered.”

Xu said he often enjoys challenging himself by working independently and combining software with physical equipment.

“I learned a lot about the hardware of drones in particular, such as the connection of the drones to an external computer, which involves intricate wiring I was not familiar with before,” Xu said. “There’s definitely some more self-guidance with these harder concepts, but there is also the assistance from my advisor.”

Stout said he accepted the role of advising Xu’s project because he was impressed by his previous work and wanted to support it further.

“I had him for two years as a student in my classes, and I’ve also known him from his extracurricular activities,” Stout said. “From all these experiences, I was convinced that John could do anything he said he could do. It’s been really fun seeing John accomplish new things each week.”