Print

Email story

Comment

Email editor

Community report

Scarecrow gets a brain at last

USF students' senior project uses technology to help protect fish farms without harming birds.

By JARED LEONE
Published April 28, 2006

This scarecrow could sing "If I only had a brain," but that would be a lie.

The intelligent scarecrow, created by four University of South Florida students for their senior project, shoos away predator birds from fish farms.

It's an invention designed to help Florida's fish farming industry fend off large wading birds such as American egrets and blue herons, which eat into the industry's profits.

For its brain, the intelligent scarecrow is outfitted with a small computer called an eBox II. It sees with the help of a digital camera, using the same image processing techniques to identify birds that police departments use in face scanners to pick convicts out of a crowd.

Once the intelligent scarecrow identifies an intruder - from up to 50 feet away - it fires water from one of its modified sprinkler nozzles and emits the sound of a loud gunshot noise or a screeching hawk.

Of course, the Microsoft processor can play any MP3 format file to scare predators away. The camera and water cannon systems are also expandable.

Intelligent scarecrow designer Jimal Ramsamooj, 28, said he wanted to help farmers protect their crops and also wanted to protect endangered birds that feed on the fish.

Last week, students tested the scarecrow at Golden Pond Tropicals, an 8-acre, 97-pond fish farm in Wimauma.

"I think it has a lot of potential," said owner John Skidmore, 45. "If it keeps the birds away, that is more money in your pocket obviously."

He estimated he loses about 3 to 5 percent of all of his fish from predator birds.

Skidmore's ponds are filled primarily with cichlids, red-tailed sharks and rainbow sharks, which nestle lower in the ponds and are not such susceptible prey. Skidmore said the idea would be great for backyard koi ponds, which are easy feeding grounds for birds.

"It is a nonlethal way of getting rid of the birds," Skidmore said. "You could go far with the idea. The technology is out there to go much further."

[Last modified April 27, 2006, 13:57:46]