Today’s adventure started with the Floating Farm, which is, in fact, the world’s first ever floating farm. It’s located in the city of Rotterdam, just a 20 minute tram ride from the centraal station, which is one of the things that makes this farm really special and sustainable. Upon our arrival at the farm, we listened to a presentation about it. The idea for the Floating Farm actually started with hurricane Sandy in New York City. Floating Farm’s owners were actually in NYC when the hurricane hit and watched firsthand as grocery stores ran out of food in just two days. That event inspired them to design a farm that could withstand flooding, a floating farm.
Floating Farm started as an experiment to see if the concept was a realistic idea. Today, it has about 30 cows that produce milk for buttermilk, yogurt, cheese, and butter purchased by customers and businesses alike. We learned that the Floating Farm prides itself on being a circular farm, meaning that it sources its raw materials from the same city to which it sells. Doing that minimizes transportation, which is environmentally-friendly and healthier for the consumer. They feed the cows beer broth from local breweries, food waste from grocery stores, and grass from Rotterdam’s largest soccer club.
We got to see baby cows and try some milk, raspberry buttermilk, yogurt, and cheeses, so it was a fun visit! It was really cool to learn how this company started as just an idea for a new method of farming and is now successfully operating and inspiring others around the world to do the same.
After our morning at the Floating Farm, we had some free time, so a couple of us went to see the cube houses. These houses are relatively new, and they were pretty much designed to just look really cool. We toured one of them and realized that they actually aren’t that practical to live in, but they’re probably the most well-known monument in Rotterdam.
Later on, we met back up with the rest of the group to tour RDM (Research, Design, Manufacturing). This company used to be a shipyard, but, since that isn’t so practical these days, it’s changed to something very cool. The building itself is split into two parts. One side has a lot of different workshops and is owned by a local university. Students can go to RDM to work on projects in an automotive engineering lab, a materials lab, an aqua lab, a woodworking shop, and a couple other facilities. The other side of the RDM building is actually a large warehouse that is rented out to start-up companies. RDM provides them with space, electricity, water, and a roof over their head. But what is really cool about RDM is that every company located there and every student of the university can interact easily and share ideas. And they do. Some of the start-up companies even do collaborations, which can really help them get started. Additionally, the companies have access to all of the labs, including a prototype lab, where they can use laser cutters and 3D printers to create prototypes.
A lot of the start-ups in RDM are focused on sustainability. We got to see one company that actually 3D prints fake coral reefs that real coral will actually grow on. These false coral reefs are printed using materials from wherever they will be placed. For example, if the company wants to encourage coral reef growth in Hawaii, they can use sand from Hawaiian beaches to print fake coral reefs. By doing so, this company can actually trick coral to growing on the fake reefs. That was just one of the ~15 companies working in RDM. Every company that they told us about had a super cool, innovative idea, so it was really interesting to hear about all of them.
Because today is our last day, we finished it off with a farewell dinner to say goodbye. I’m really glad that I had the opportunity to go on this trip. I learned a lot, had so much fun, and met some amazing people! Thanks so much for reading!