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Butterfield maze created by engineering student

By Bonnie Meibers, Senior Staff Writer

[media-credit name="Contributed by Patrick Cutno" align="alignleft" width="260"]Farm1[/media-credit]

As leaves in Oxford begin to turn orange, red and yellow and fall festivities start to pick up, many Miami students head over to Butterfield Farm Market to participate in activities like hayrides and the corn maze. Many students may not know that the Butterfield Farm corn maze was designed by one of their own.

For the past three years, Miami and Butterfield Farm Market have partnered to help design and cut the Butterfield's corn maze.

The engineering department selects a student they think is best suited for the job. Butterfield Farm Market gives that student a $1,000 scholarship in return for his or her service.

"The student needs to be very hands on because this is not about working on a theoretical problem, this is to actually get the job done," said Qihou (Herb) Zhou, professor and chair of the department of Electrical and Computer Engineering.

The engineering department typically looks for someone who has a good reputation and is knowledgeable of the GPS device used to cut the cornfield.

This year, the department chose Pat Cutno, a graduate student.

"Designing the actual corn maze was pretty fun, learning the GPS not so much," Cutno said of the process.

Cutno also recruited his friend, Andrew Rush, to help him with the physical labor. Rush is also an engineering graduate student. Cutno will be sharing the scholarship money with Rush.

Initially, Cutno created and submitted three designs to Brian Butterfield, current owner of Butterfield Farm Market. From there, Butterfield selected which design he liked best.

After the design was chosen, Cutno and Butterfield communicated back and forth until Butterfield was happy with the design. Butterfield said he looks for a design with proper spacing (so that maze-goers cannot just step through the corn), dead ends and an overall appealing appearance.

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"We don't want it to be too easy," Butterfield said.

The design Butterfield and Cutno settled on consists of three jack-o-lanterns with a Miami "M" incorporated into the design.

The actual cutting of the cornfield took place in late August and spanned about five or six days, Cutno said. Rush was the one to cut the cornfield.

A GPS unit is used to cut the cornfield. This device allows the student to map the design onto the cornfield and aids in guiding the mower.

Since the corn is always growing, the first stage of cutting occurred when the corn was about 10 inches tall. Then Rush cut the corn again after it had grown to be about five feet tall. This was to re-cut anything he may have missed or had grown back.

Finally, Butterfield and Cutno walked through the maze to make any last-minute adjustments before the corn maze was opened up to the public in the fall.

The partnership between Butterfield Farm Market and Miami started with former Miami professor Jade Morton. She was looking for a practical project for her students to tackle, and offered to cut the corn maze for free. The project went well and Butterfield invited Miami to come back and continue cutting the corn maze.

Zhou said he appreciates the partnership with Butterfield Farm because it gives students a chance to apply their problem-solving skills to a real world problem. The feeling is mutual, Butterfield said.

"[Miami] always seems to do a real nice job for us," he said.

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