Industrial Automation Students Showcase Senior Projects

Tuesday, December, 2025

Each year, the Industrial Automation Department at Bakersfield College hosts their Senior Projects Open House which allows students in the program to present the innovative projects they have been working on throughout the year. The event is open to the public, and attendees have the opportunity to preview the students’ automation creations and interact with the people who developed them. This year’s open house took place during the first week of December and was hosted in the Robotics Lab of the Science & Engineering Building.

There were a variety of projects that covered multiple industrial practices including agriculture, human-machine interface, industrial processes, and more. One of the participating projects was titled ‘Aerophonics with Weather Machine’ and was conceived and created by a student team. RJames Viloria, Juan Manriquez, and Amy Huerta have been working together on the agriculture-based project for nearly two semesters. The ambitious endeavor focuses on optimizing a controlled environmental system for more efficient farming.

“We came up with the idea because most of the solutions in the market are timer-based,” says RJames Viloria, “the purpose of our project is to implement precision by measuring nutrients, PH levels, and temperature in order to increase yields.” They built the entire project from scratch, and their display included a kale crop they had cultivated. “We grew kale, but we also tested lettuces and specifically, Romaine lettuce,” says Viloria, “and we were able to increase the growth rate and yield of the crops.”

When asked if they felt their project was successful, Juan Manriquez was quick to reply, “As a group and team, we feel like we nailed it,” he says, “all of our hard work has paid off.” The team gets graded throughout the entire process, but the open house serves as the last step to receiving their grade. “We do get reviewed and graded during both semesters, and towards the end, the overall project would be the presentation,” says Manriquez, “So, based on how that goes today – it’s like the final of our course.”

The Industrial Automation open house served a perfect environment to showcase the talent, creativity and technical skill developed within the department. The dedication demonstrated by students like Viloria, Manriquez, and Huerta reflects their commitment to hands-on learning and modern problem solving. Congratulations to all participating seniors for their impressive work and successful presentations and best wishes as they take the next steps in their academic and professional careers.