Submitted via IRC for TheMightyBuzzard
Depending on which hemisphere of the Earth you're currently reading this from, summer is finally starting to fight its way to the surface. For the more "green" of our readers, that can mean it's time to start making plans for summer gardening. But as anyone who's ever planted something edible can tell you, garden pests such as squirrels are fantastically effective at turning all your hard work into a wasteland. Finding ways to keep them away from your crops can be a full-time job, but luckily it's a job nobody will mind if automation steals from humans.
[Peter Quinn] writes in to tell us about the elaborate lengths he is going to keep bushy-tailed marauders away from his tomatoes this year. Long term he plans on setting up a non-lethal sentry gun to scare them away, but before he can get to that point he needs to perfect the science of automatically targeting his prey. At the same time, he wants to train the system well enough that it won't fire on humans or other animals such as cats and birds which might visit his garden.
Source: https://hackaday.com/2018/04/30/training-the-squirrel-terminator/
(Score: 3, Informative) by jimtheowl on Wednesday May 02 2018, @05:31PM (2 children)
Unfortunately, about twice a year, a bird would end up a casualty as well.
Even now that the cat is gone, the squirrels still keep their distances from the house.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 02 2018, @06:38PM (1 child)
Twice a year only? Maybe he kept his bird kills secret from you...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 03 2018, @08:58AM
Keeping kills secret?, ever owned a cat?. Seriously, if they're actively killing then they're more likely to drag in their kills for you to inspect and, as one of my sisters pointed out, thanks to domestication they're probably also expecting you to cook the bloody things for them.
It might surprise some people, but not all cats like/kill birds (and I say this as someone who has been exposed to foibles of the furry overlord tribe for over 40 years), some are exclusively bird catchers, some are exclusively 'mousers', some of them are 'opportunists', some of them seem to survive on fish and cheese...