At a glance
Project IF (Indoor Farm) is a student-run RSO at UW focused on hydroponic farming, research, and community building. Operating… Read full summary
- Funding received
- 2024-2025
- Mini
- Awarded
- $4,976
- Funding partners
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- Services and Activities Fee (SAF)
- Website & social links
Project IF (Indoor Farm) is a student-run RSO at UW focused on hydroponic farming, research, and community building. Operating two vertical hydroponic systems in Condon Hall, the group can grow up to 260 lettuce heads in four weeks and has experimented with dozens of crops, including kale, basil, and bell peppers. With over 40 active members, Project IF engages students through hands-on farming, community potlucks, and class tours, fostering both sustainability and a connection to food. Now in its fifth year, the group is seeking support to update its aging equipment, including computers, pumps, and safety upgrades, in order to sustain its mission of advancing hydroponic research and community outreach.
Project IF (Indoor Farm) is a UW student-run RSO, focusing on hydroponic farm research and building community. Project IF is built upon Kurt Kung’s PhD project to research a micro-bubbling system. After COVID, Project IF restarted as an RSO instead of a research project. As a part of this initiative, Kurt Kung brought in current UW students to run the farm. Today, we have fully transitioned to a student-run RSO and are focused on research, community, and sustainability.
Project IF operates inside of a room in Condon Hall. Our room holds our two vertical hydroponic systems that, at full capacity, can produce 260 lettuce heads in a 4 week span. We hold daily maintenance sessions to take care of our farm and have over 40 active members. After mastering the lettuce growing process, we moved on to experimenting with other crops and pushing the boundaries of what is possible in a hydroponic system. Today, we have tested dozens of crops, including kale, basil, bell peppers and more. At the end of each growth cycle, we gather together as a club community to enjoy our produce - making sure to utilize it all. These potlucks allow for UW students to get a free dinner, connect to the food that they helped to grow, and be in community with each other. In addition, Project IF routinely gives tours to multiple UW classes every year - including The Urban Farm and NUTR 303.
As we are reaching the fifth year of our project as an RSO, it is important that we start to update some of our aging systems. In order to continue pursuing our goals of community outreach and hydroponic research, we must also make sure that our technology is in place to support us. We are looking to purchase items such as a new computer - what we use every day to check for EC and pH levels in our towers. Our current computer is on its last legs and without such vital technology, our farm cannot function. In addition, we need new pumps to pump our nutrient solution to our plants. Over time, these pumps degrade and we are currently without any backups. Finally, we will use this money to continue our work with UW EH&S (UW Environmental Health and Safety) to make sure our farm is as safe as possible. As suggested by EH&S, we are looking to change our physical keys into a keypad in order to secure our far and add a second hand-washing station for when we deal with chemicals.
Food Systems, Nutrition, and Health
College of Engineering Affiliate RSO
Yona Sipos
Faculty Advisor
- ysipos@uw.edu
- Affiliation and department
- Food Systems, Nutrition, and Health
Request amount and budget
Plans for financial longevity
CSF funding is intended to help our farm reboot some of our aging systems in order to last us for many years to come. As such systems have lasted us for over five years so far, we expect our new items to last us for such a time or longer. In addition, we continue to have yearly funding to sustain our normal operations cost. We are currently affiliated with the Paul G Allen School and FSNH (Food Systems, Nutrition, and Health), both of whom generously provide us with enough funding to sustain our year-to-year operation costs. We plan for CSF funding to be a way to purchase more expensive, longer term items that will allow our farm to continue functioning for the next 5+ years.
We will work to implement all of the things we purchase within the calendar year. As many of the items are simple purchases, we will buy those items at the most opportune time. Since our farm is closed over the summer, more labor intensive projects will be moved to September. In addition, we will coordinating with facilities to work on getting a keypad lock onto our door installed over the summer to be ready for when operations resume in Fall Quarter '25.
Plans for long-term project management
Due to our project being entirely student run, we have extensive plans in place to make sure that our farm continues to have leaders to run it. Our club operates within an officer/member format. We generally have 5-7 officers a year to run club operations and 30-40 active members. In order to make sure that we continuously have officers able to run the farm, we recruit for new officers every single spring quarter to replace any graduating seniors. We prioritize choosing freshman or sophomore students with more time to grow as leaders of the club. In addition, we recently became affiliated with the Food, Systems, Nutrition, and Health program ensuring that we have fiscal and departmental oversight for the foreseeable future.
Problem statement
Hydroponic farming is an innovative field of urban agriculture that solves many of our globe’s growing challenges. Hydroponic farming is ideally suited for urban areas, especially those that are considered ‘food deserts’. Due to its need for little space and year-round production ability, hydroponic farming offers a solution in urban areas where space availability and fertile soil is limited. In addition, hydroponic farming has significantly less water usage than conventional agriculture. Especially as our world continues to face growing concerns about fertile land and water availability, hydroponic farming offers a solution to these problems. At UW, Project IF offers students an opportunity to understand how these systems work within an urban environment. Specifically in Seattle, hydroponics is a uniquely relevant solution to food insecurity. Hydroponic systems are the most sustainable and efficient in cities which rely heavily on renewable energy sources - such as Seattle. Being the perfect urban environment for a hydroponic farm, Project IF provides the UW community with the opportunity to engage with the growing technology of hydroponics right on campus. In addition, feeling connected and having access to fresh, locally grown produce year-round is a major benefit of hydroponics on campus. While the project began as a completely different PhD research project, it has evolved into a community project where students can feel connected to their food year-round, even in the urban environment of Seattle.
Problem context
Project IF is a part of the broader food systems opportunities at UW. We offer year-round, no experience necessary opportunities for students to get involved with sustainability and food production. We support the various other opportunities to do the same thing around campus and are always open to collaboration with such entities. Hydroponic farming, however, is not dependent on season to function. Even in the dead of the winter, we can produce loads of basil and lettuce. In addition, we aim to be a space open to students who are interested in studying hydroponic systems or new methods of food cultivation. We open our space to any UW undergraduate or graduate student looking to do a research project, helping to lower barriers to participation. In addition, we routinely participate in campus-wide food systems events - most notably with NUTR 303: Individual to Population Health. Our goal is to be another resource on campus where students can get hands-on experience with innovative and sustainable solutions to global problems.
Measure the impacts
| Impact / goal | Metric(s) of success | UW stakeholders impacted |
|---|---|---|
| Provide accessible research opportunities to UW students interested in interdisciplinary projects involving technology, sustainability, and food systems. | 80 people engaged in hydroponic research. | Undergraduate |
| Fostering connections between undergraduate students interested in sustainability across grade levels and disciplines. Providing educational opportunities to K-12 students, UW students and faculty, and members of the community. | 5 potlucks hosted this academic year with attendance as high as 35 members per event. 12 class tours hosted this academic year. | Undergraduate, Graduate, Academic staff |
| Efficient and successful utilization of hydroponic systems for sustainable agricultural production | 90% less water consumed as compared to traditional agricultural methods | Undergraduate |
Communication tactics and tools
Our key communication tactics are tabling, instagram, discord, and weekly events. As our farm needs daily maintenance, we offer a 1 hour officer-led session open to any UW student every single day to get involved. We advertise this through our instagram and our main club communication platform: discord. In addition, we host workshops and potlucks around 8 times a year - our biggest events. For example, we have done a “spooky” microgreens workshop for Halloween and host multiple quarterly potlucks to enjoy our produce as a club. Finally, we attend as many tabling events as possible in order to get our name out there and around campus. In order to keep providing these services to our club members, we must have a functioning farm that is able to produce produce and monitor our nutrients.
Outreach communication plan
As we stated, one of our major goals as an RSO is to build community. An essential part of our functioning is the community that we create along the way. In terms of communication, we already have many communication systems set up to make sure that all UW students know that they belong. We continue to table at as many relevant events every year, such as the Activities Fair, Engineering RSO Fair, and the Earth Day Fair. We utilize Instagram to share our progress with the entire community and post all of our weekly events on there. As we’ve mentioned throughout, we also have yearly collaborations with UW classes who are directly connected to our mission. Looking to the future, we have goals to have partnerships with local high schools in order to provide sustainability workshops for students in the greater Seattle area.
Student involvement
Our project is entirely volunteer based. We offer informal research opportunities for all students to be able get involved with science and sustainability at UW. We encourage students to identify a problem they see on the farm and collaborate with other club members to develop a solution to improve our farm. As an RSO, we do not offer any paid work. However, any UW student who joins is able to get a basic knowledge of hydroponic systems which can be applicable to other scenarios or work opportunities.