Student Eric applied math in a greenhouse

Math and gerberas. Strict formulas and colorful flowers. This combination may not seem obvious when you think you know everything about intersections, parabolas, logarithms, sine, and cosine. That doesn’t stop Applied Mathematics student Eric van der Sluis from doing great work for LetsGrow.com. He developed a model for the company to detect and track gerberas. Thanks to his work, every gerbera grower can closely follow how fast each plant grows and when it will be ready to harvest.

So you are a math whizz. But what can you do with it later? For Eric that was quite clear four years ago. He wanted to use his math skills to help a company perform better. Now that he has almost graduated, he still has this goal. “During my internship, I worked with gerberas. But the possibilities for Applied Mathematics are much broader. I can develop software for a company. Or work on data analysis.”

Detection and tracking

“I developed a new detection and tracking model for gerbera growers who are a customer at LetsGrow.com. Take the example of that one grower. He wants to know how his plants are doing when he can harvest them and when they will be ready for auction. One option would be to inspect the greenhouses every day but it would be much easier to place a camera in the gerbera greenhouse. Every day it takes a new picture of the gerberas. I have given every flower its own identity. This allows the grower to track each plant until it’s ready to harvest. Based on the images that are stored in the cloud, he will know exactly how many flowers he will be able to harvest, how many new flowers will grow in a day or a week, and if some batches are growing better than others. He can see it all in one glance on his computer. This is much more efficient than inspecting the greenhouses every day.”

30 new colleagues overnight

His internship at LetsGrow.com was Eric’s first introduction to the private sector. “It greatly expanded my world. I suddenly gained 30 fun, young colleagues. After a while, I had gotten to know everyone. It was a new experience for me to work every day from 8 am to 4.30 pm and to meet the expectations of your colleagues.”
  
Source: De Haagse hogeschool