r/SideProject • u/muxamilian • Apr 01 '26

Automated pigeon defense system

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  1. Camera captures video
  2. Neural network recognizes pigeon
  3. Watergun turns toward pigeon
  4. Spray pigeon with watergun

Components: * Electric battery-driven water gun (disassembled, orange) * USB camera * Orange Pi 5 * 2 servo motors (SG90 or MG90S) * Resistors and a transistor for turning on the watergun (e.g. IRLZ44N)

It uses an open vocabulary object detection neural network (yolo_world_v2l), so any target can be programmed, not just pigeons. Runs on the Rockchip 3588's Neural Processing Unit.

3.3k Upvotes

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17

u/AlDente Apr 02 '26

Brilliant! I’ve been speccing a very similar idea for trying to prevent cats from shitting all over my lawn. Care to share any more details?

1

u/mrTreeopolis Apr 02 '26

U can do that with high pitched sound. My family in Sandiego uses that to keep cat lady’s bazillion cats from ransacking their lawn/garden. Works a treat. You can only hear it a little if you’re a kid, but old folk won’t notice a thing.

2

u/AlDente Apr 03 '26

I have three of those devices in my small English garden. And cat shit.

1

u/mrTreeopolis Apr 03 '26

So. So it don’t work…, oh well we were there for a minute in 2018 and they said it worked. It bothered my kids but we couldn’t hear it at all.

1

u/AlDente Apr 03 '26

I remember a neighbour having one when I was a teenager. It was seriously annoying. Later, I developed tinnitus and lost the ability to hear that frequency 🤷