The Lincoln Agri-Robotics and AgriFoRwArdS Poinsettia Challenge is a holiday-themed machine learning and computer vision competition to devise intelligent ways to help identify features that contribute to rating the “best” poinsettia. We will be looking at the height of the plant, colour of the bracts (leaves) and “bushiness”, based on the number of clusters of bracts in an image.

Register for the Hackathon Challenge here!

→ The competition rules are released at the online Opening Ceremony on Friday 10th December 2021 at 12pm GMT. The link to the Opening Ceremony will be sent after registration, and rules will be available to read via the same link after midday on the 10th December.

→ The competition submission of results are due date is Monday 10th January 2022 at 12pm GMT.

→ Winners will be announced at the Closing Ceremony on Friday 14th January 2022 at 12pm GMT.

Anyone with access to a computer can participate, and you can register as an individual or a group.

You will be given access to our virtual ‘poinsettia nursery’, where you will find many photographs of poinsettia plants. Bridge Farm Group, the leading UK producer of ornamental plants, flowers and herbs has allowed us to visit their state of the art facility in Spalding, where they are growing over 1million poinsettias to collect the images and data required to run this event.

Use state-of-the-art computer vision and machine learning (ML) methodologies to develop methods for autonomous labelling of images. Then use the data supplied in our ‘poinsettia repository’ to train and test your models to accurately determine the ‘prettiest poinsettia’.

Prizes will be given for the best models in the following categories:

→ Find the top of the plant

→ Find the colours

→ Find the bracts (leaves)

Further information on the dates and timings and the running of the event can be found in the T&Cs here.