Can you out-engineer a Squirrel ??

[RWebb]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFZFjoX2cGg&feature=youtu.be

BTW, this guy was an ME at JPL on the Mars rover, and AND inventor of the porch pirate glitter bomb

[masraum]

[RWebb]

aerodynamics lesson at ~~12:00

cognitive psychology and potential AI lesson at ~~ 17:00

[aigel]

Very cool.

You think these guys started at station one without further incentives such as nuts planted at each station? That's hard for me to believe.

In my backyard this would have been an air rifle / gumbo cooking video and much shorter.

G

[Jeff Higgins]

[wdfifteen]

That was great! I've been battling squirrels on my bird feeders for a long time. I've tried all kinds of things with no complete success. When I had feeders on poles I was successful at hanging a Slinky toy from the bottom of the feeder, around the pole. They sometimes got through, but at least they had to work for it.

Lately I've been putting Capzasin capsaicin cream on the parts of the feeder the squirrel has to touch to get to the feed. (Capzasin is evil. It's supposed to relieve arthritis pain but it really just burns your skin so bad you forget about your joint pain. DO NOT apply this stuff without gloves on. If you get it on your fingers every other part of your body you touch will burn like the fires of hell. )

So far it has cut the instanced of squirrel predation by 90%. I'm looking forward to seeing what they do do get around this one.

[rfuerst911sc]

Our squirrels laugh at the " hot " food it doesn't faze them one bit .

[Rinty]

I can't understand why someone would spend all this time building this stuff and making these videos, unless he's an amateur ethologist.

Does Youtube pay ad revenue to video posters?

[RWebb]

he's a professional engineer

now has a gig selling educational kits to children

[Rinty]

Yes, I think he enjoys designing and building this stuff. And the critters fascinate him.

After all, Desmond Morris wrote a whole book on cat behaviour.

[GH85Carrera]

Originally Posted by Rinty

I can't understand why someone would spend all this time building this stuff and making these videos, unless he's an amateur ethologist.

Does YouTube pay ad revenue to video posters?

He obviously enjoyed his experiment. It is a popular video. Funny video with clever ideas. I am glad I did not have to finance the project. And yes, he likely made money from YouTube with all the views.

[Cajundaddy]

The guy is a maniac and yes he was well compensated with YT revenue sharing. Here is his porch pirate 1.0 video which got 80M views. Fun stuff!

[dad911]

27 million views. $3-$5 per thousand.

$81,000 to $135,000

[aigel]

What we learned is that you have to put your bird feeder on a smooth surface pole that you grease up real good. It needs to be high enough off the ground and far enough from other structures where the rodent can't jump. All the stations in the experiment were off the ground suspended by such poles. There is your answer.

If I lived in a rural setting, my answer still would be 'gumbo'.

G

[wdfifteen]

Originally Posted by rfuerst911sc

Our squirrels laugh at the " hot " food it doesn't faze them one bit .

Still working here. They get their feet in it, lick it off, and head for the trees.