I made something like this to train Ravens to trade coins for peanuts. They're terrified of it but Jays aren't, so the Ravens watch from the treetops to see where Jays hide the food, then steal it without risking confrontation with some soulless machine.Your feeding process works better than mine but something will have to be done about the noise.
Interesting to hear about your experiments. In my garden it took some time and patiens to get the birds used to the noise, however, even when they where afraid of the sound, they could'nt resist free food, so they came back quite quick to pick up the nuts. Today, the noise is more of a 'trigger', if i manually from my GUI, sends out a nut...they will here the sound from quite a distance and race each other to arrive first.
When I saw the video of the magpie that has a few million views I was elated. I then came looking for this because I was quite curious to see how it worked. I'm an electrical engineering student and I love things like this.
This is very interesting. My thoughts would have lead me to using a circle made of wood or plastic on the base of the inside compartment and have holes drilled in that would fit only one of the food items and have it set to rotate the set distance for each hole to release the food into the drop down slot. You just set up a hopper on one half of the circle that’s away from the drop out slot and there you go. Similar to a gumball machine. I think it might help any damage from vibration and reduce all the moving parts and unnecessary electronics taking up the space in the container.
Thank you for open sourcing this great project! I have been feeding and watching the crows in my back garden every day since March. My new years resolution is to build this system to interact with them. I have printed the parts and have one question. In the previous video you have the optical detector at the bottom of the bowl. You now have a separate tube for detecting the food. Did you change that because light was getting in or was there some other reason?
Would love to see a huge recycling plant with 10ft tall versions of these. Flocks of birds coming and going swapping man made waste for food. Amazing what humans can do when they work with nature rather than against
Interesting. I've never seen this done in that way. I'd favor something like an auger and suitably crunched food. Another way might be a hopper and a vibrator with a similar "closed loop" step.
I tried several auger-solutions, some i found at thingiverse, never got them to work properly. Also, the vibrating dispenser can hande several types of food at different sizes. The easiest solution might be a motorized lid, and et the birds pick out the food. However, i wanted a feeder that can dispense single pieces, i want to run experiments where the bird can se the reward, and solve som task to get access to it...the first thing a did was actually to have them to open a lid covering the food bowl...sounds easy, but the poor small birds like sparrows never learnd the trick...don't worry, the get seeds at another location in my garde...
Hi. The raspberry is controlling the mechatronic of the dispenser, controling the pwm to the vibrationg motor, checking the optogate if a nut has 'passed' and som logic to handle this little machine. This dispenser logic could easily be handled by an arduino...the arduino is even better for this. Most likely the same arduino could run the metaldetector software..i have a dedicated arduino, down at the bird -work-arearight now... But !!! i also want remote functionality, a GUI to control the system, time-stamp of events. Event-log pushed to an external MySQL database, Camera view...etc. Here is where the RPI comes in handy. I know some of you, me to, know that an arduino can get a wifi-board, camera etc...Arduinos are wonderful, reliable simple, i prefer them or clones like fethers rom Adafruit for close to 'hardware' stuff. The RPI is a complete computer, with all the pros and cons of that... I don't want a geeky hardware-battle here, my design could be minimized in a forthcoming revision. As you can see in some of my videos, there are a lot of ugly, quick and dirty solutions... But Yes, the dispenser and metaldetection logic can be handled by a standard arduino. And the RPI could be added later. in fact, thats the way i started!
@@LabbHasse Thank you very much for this clear explanation! Not looking for a battle either, I'm just new with this and wanted to know if I could just use an arduino for my project. Thank you for helping!
@@MrLowieVE If you want WiFi abilities and a smaller device an ESP32 development board would be great. Can be programmed just like Arduino but has WiFi + Bluetooth on board. Lolin d32 would be a great pick and also has SD card slot, and LiPo battery connector etc.
Auger doesn't allow you to feed a single treat. That was the point of this mechanism. Works well for pet feeders though where amount can vary a bit here and there.
I made something like this to train Ravens to trade coins for peanuts. They're terrified of it but Jays aren't, so the Ravens watch from the treetops to see where Jays hide the food, then steal it without risking confrontation with some soulless machine.Your feeding process works better than mine but something will have to be done about the noise.
Interesting to hear about your experiments.
In my garden it took some time and patiens to get the birds used to the noise, however, even when they where afraid of the sound, they could'nt resist free food, so they came back quite quick to pick up the nuts. Today, the noise is more of a 'trigger', if i manually from my GUI, sends out a nut...they will here the sound from quite a distance and race each other to arrive first.
Very nicely done! A lot of thought and work into a great project. Thanks for sharing with us!
When I saw the video of the magpie that has a few million views I was elated. I then came looking for this because I was quite curious to see how it worked. I'm an electrical engineering student and I love things like this.
Wonderful project!!!! Thanks for sharing this and providing the design files and information!
When you see a mini computer in a bird feeder. You know things are serious.
This is very interesting. My thoughts would have lead me to using a circle made of wood or plastic on the base of the inside compartment and have holes drilled in that would fit only one of the food items and have it set to rotate the set distance for each hole to release the food into the drop down slot. You just set up a hopper on one half of the circle that’s away from the drop out slot and there you go. Similar to a gumball machine. I think it might help any damage from vibration and reduce all the moving parts and unnecessary electronics taking up the space in the container.
Cool, seems a little bit too complicated and messy but it works perfectly :) Nice project
Thank you for open sourcing this great project! I have been feeding and watching the crows in my back garden every day since March. My new years resolution is to build this system to interact with them. I have printed the parts and have one question. In the previous video you have the optical detector at the bottom of the bowl. You now have a separate tube for detecting the food. Did you change that because light was getting in or was there some other reason?
Hey @Hans Forsberg you've mentioned that you've tried different types of foods. Any recommendations of what works and what doesn't for magpies?
Would love to see a huge recycling plant with 10ft tall versions of these. Flocks of birds coming and going swapping man made waste for food.
Amazing what humans can do when they work with nature rather than against
Interesting. I've never seen this done in that way. I'd favor something like an auger and suitably crunched food. Another way might be a hopper and a vibrator with a similar "closed loop" step.
I tried several auger-solutions, some i found at thingiverse, never got them to work properly. Also, the vibrating dispenser can hande several types of food at different sizes. The easiest solution might be a motorized lid, and et the birds pick out the food. However, i wanted a feeder that can dispense single pieces, i want to run experiments where the bird can se the reward, and solve som task to get access to it...the first thing a did was actually to have them to open a lid covering the food bowl...sounds easy, but the poor small birds like sparrows never learnd the trick...don't worry, the get seeds at another location in my garde...
Here's an idea: You could you a (modified) gum ball vending machine to do this, also.
Have you plan, tuto for a construction?
Hans can the raspberry pi be replaced by an arduino?
Hi.
The raspberry is controlling the mechatronic of the dispenser, controling the pwm to the vibrationg motor, checking the optogate if a nut has 'passed' and som logic to handle this little machine. This dispenser logic could easily be handled by an arduino...the arduino is even better for this. Most likely the same arduino could run the metaldetector software..i have a dedicated arduino, down at the bird -work-arearight now...
But !!! i also want remote functionality, a GUI to control the system, time-stamp of events. Event-log pushed to an external MySQL database, Camera view...etc. Here is where the RPI comes in handy. I know some of you, me to, know that an arduino can get a wifi-board, camera etc...Arduinos are wonderful, reliable simple, i prefer them or clones like fethers rom Adafruit for close to 'hardware' stuff. The RPI is a complete computer, with all the pros and cons of that...
I don't want a geeky hardware-battle here, my design could be minimized in a forthcoming revision. As you can see in some of my videos, there are a lot of ugly, quick and dirty solutions...
But Yes, the dispenser and metaldetection logic can be handled by a standard arduino. And the RPI could be added later. in fact, thats the way i started!
@@LabbHasse Thank you very much for this clear explanation! Not looking for a battle either, I'm just new with this and wanted to know if I could just use an arduino for my project. Thank you for helping!
@@MrLowieVE If you want WiFi abilities and a smaller device an ESP32 development board would be great. Can be programmed just like Arduino but has WiFi + Bluetooth on board. Lolin d32 would be a great pick and also has SD card slot, and LiPo battery connector etc.
What if they put rock or unneccessary things into basket
It's a little metal detector.
I would suggest you get out of using a vibrator and instead use a small horizontal auger.
Auger doesn't allow you to feed a single treat. That was the point of this mechanism. Works well for pet feeders though where amount can vary a bit here and there.
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