The Corn Maze project is the result of a School of Engineering and Applied Science electrical and computer engineering Introduction to Global Positioning Systems class.  Under the direction of Dr. Jade Morton, professor of electrical and computer engineering, student teams in the class competed for the winning corn maze design for the Miami University Bicentennial celebration.

Two members of the winning design team, Tom Burg, a senior engineering management and manufacturing engineering major from Chagrin Falls and Xiaolei Mao, a master’s student in computational science and engineering from Beijing, China then completed the project by cutting the design using a GPS aided lawn mower.

“We integrated a survey-grade DGPS (Differential Global Positioning System) with mapping software to allow a driver to follow the design and cut the maze,” Morton said. “What we did with two students and one mower in a few hours would have taken several adults several days of measuring and cutting using conventional methods, and ours was much more accurate.”A scholarship from the Dayton section of the Institute of Navigation awarded to Tom Burg provided financial support for the project.  Dr. Morton supplied technical advice.

The RedHawk maze at Butterfield Farm Market, located about 10 minutes east of Oxford  at 4000 Oxford Trenton Road (Route 73), will be open to the public 9 a.m.-6 p.m. daily from Sept. 5 (tentative) through Oct. 31. Cost is $5. For more information, call the farm at 513-524-2676 or go to www.butterfieldfarmmarket.com.

Dr. Donald Ucci, Chair of ECE, and Dr. Jade Morton, Professor of ECE

Tom Burg

Xiaolei Mao

Arial view of the finished corn maze.