The Intelligent Scarecrow fights back against birds

It shouldn't really come as a surprise that with so many other professionals being replaced by robots (see: nurses, housekeepers, soldiers), that the humble scarecrow should find himself the target of a high-tech upgrade. Trying to destroy the whole "scarecrows are dumb" myth so cruelly perpetuated by L. Frank Baum, students and faculty at the University of South Florida in Tampa have built a computer-powered model that can detect incoming birds and employ non-lethal countermeasures to protect their wards. The Intelligent Scarecrow, as it's known, was developed to combat the problem of nervey birds trying to feed themselves at the expense of Florida's $42 million fish farming industry, and has been chosen as one of 30 finalists by Microsoft in their Windows Challenge competition. Dressed in a football helmet and jersey, the bot -- which was conceived by Associate Professor of Computer Science and Engineering Ken Christensen -- uses a networked camera linked to image recognition software for identifying winged menaces in the vicinity, and attempts to repel them with a mix of annoying sounds and even more annoying blasts of water. Future versions of the bot will improve on the detection range (it can't currently cover enough area to make commercial deployment practical), and more importantly, the lack of mobility, because apparently even birds get wise to stationary deterrents eventually.

[Via The Raw Feed]

[Mark (USF ALUM) @ May 18th 2006 10:20AM]

Just so you know, the tags you applied to the post: 'UniversityOfFloridaAtTampa' and 'university of florida at tampa' are absolutely incorrect.

Being an alumni of this fine institution, I'm actually offended that you'd confuse the "University of South Florida" with the "University of Florida"

Let me assure you, they're two COMPLETELY different universities that are in no way related except that they're in Flroida. Please fix the tags.
Thanks.

[Sam @ May 18th 2006 10:40AM]

If they succeed with these LowTech AglyBots, it will be because it will make the birds start laughing totally out of control!

[Sara @ May 18th 2006 10:44AM]

While you're correcting things, L. Frank Baum wrote the Oz books. Frank Oz is Yoda (among other Muppets).

[Shaun @ May 18th 2006 11:25AM]

Vault, drinks like a soda, kicks like an energy drink.

Now to implement the hippy tracking system with lethal counter mesaures.

[Dave B @ May 18th 2006 11:32AM]

Why are worried about robots getting so intelligent that they turn on their masters? What we are creating here, through evolution, are intelligent birds that will attack us. Employing this scarecrow is a first step. Soon we will have one or more birds distracting it while others grab their bounty. Then we will have to create even more intelligent scarecrows, creating more intelligent birds, and so on. We need to stop screwing around with evolution before we are all destroyed!

[gatorwalsh @ May 18th 2006 11:49AM]

I do not think that anyone, including the birds, will be scared of the USF football uniform. If the scarecrow-bot is anything like the other members of the football team the birds will run train over it and collect their fish as usual...

[John Stracke @ May 18th 2006 12:21PM]

I, for one, welcome our new corvid masters.

[vinegar @ May 18th 2006 1:00PM]

yes, but can it also defend my field from hippies?

[Brian @ May 18th 2006 1:05PM]

Yes, vinegar, why stop at crows...

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5452115200083839699&q=vault+scarecrow

[Steve @ May 18th 2006 2:16PM]

Perhaps they should worry more about their Geography Dept. that way they can figure out that Tampa is actually West Central Florida. I guess since Univ. of Central Florida (in Orlando, which is actually further south than Tampa) was already taken when they went to the name the school, they had to come up with something, they should have gone with Univ. of Tampa Commuters.

[Brian @ May 18th 2006 3:37PM]

I should get one of these for my X girlfriend.... only with lazers and flame throwers

[Brian @ May 18th 2006 3:41PM]

Foxes, Brian, FOXES!!!!

[Shaun @ May 18th 2006 3:52PM]

Steve, maybe you should visit their georgraphy department since you obviously dont know the difference between North and South. UCF is in North East Orlando, which like the rest of Orlando, is north of Tampa.

[Tomy @ May 18th 2006 4:45PM]

Hey this is my school!!!

Go Bulls!

USF Grad, class of 2005

[Dan @ May 18th 2006 7:50PM]

FRANK OZ!!!

BAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

[Claudiu Spulber @ May 19th 2006 5:04AM]

So these devices will drive the birds away from the commercial fish farm to another location, where the owners let's say don't have the money to buy these devices. These devices just pass along the losses, why not shoot them all, shoot every wild animal that consumes our crops..but wait, we do that already for fun, furl, meat..we just need to accelerate the process.

[3055 @ May 19th 2006 11:31AM]

USF ALUM REPRESENT! Nice seein usf on engadget lol

and yea nice try on the UCF is further south than tampa comment, lol tampa whaaat!?

[TIMMAH! @ May 19th 2006 1:24PM]

Crows are pretty smart. I think they'd eventually figure out that yes, when they get near, things get noisy and then there's a bit a rain, but otherwise it's still a good fishing spot.

[Sara @ May 21st 2006 12:07AM]

I love going to USF, and I'm from out of state. And that scarecrow thing is fascinating to me. GO BULLS!!!!

[Jimmy Jones @ Feb 7th 2009 2:47AM]

It's funny to see this so called scarecrow on engadget....I happen to attend grad sch with the guy half-bending down (Francisco Blanquicet) who is now working for M$ after a summer internship. And that d-bag professor (in white shirt) is the worst professor ever in the history of computer science at the graduate level (maybe Undergrad level too) at USF. Wouldn't say that if he wasn't my grad. advisor for about 1yr and some change. This kind of people should be locked up where people who are psychologically sick should be.

This d-bag thinks of himself as god. He thinks he holds the key to your future and he tries every thing possible to do evil "the professional" and "devilish" way. For one, he doesn't like when you quit on him, For two, he's one racist bastard, For three, he's one big loser who likes to milk off of his student's ideas and tries to become the hero when the person who actually did the hardest work is no where near the media.

He's so impartial and earned the worst professor ever to make me even not want to say I'm an alumni "despite all his evil doings" to prevent me from graduating. Shame on you Kenneth J Christensen (KJC) as you usually reference in your almighty cheesy C codes.