Down on the ground, look: It’s a dog. It’s a man. It’s a driving bird!

Bird Buggy

Andrew Gray loves his parrot, Pepper.  He consider Pepper to be one of the family.  Like most family members, Pepper has his quirks.  

A very LOUD problem

Pepper makes insanely loud shrieks whenever he is left alone.  Andrew tried a few training techniques.  Whenever Pepper opened his beak to scream, Andrew would squirt Pepper with a bit of water. The bird bath respite never lasted very long and Pepper would start up his screaming pretty quickly.

Next, Andrew tried a remote controlled noise maker.  Whenever the bird shrieked Andrew would have the noise maker go off.  Pepper eventually got used to the noise maker and soon it had no effect.

Think outside the cage

Andrew noticed that whenever Pepper was allowed to roam the house, his beak was mum.  BUT, that didn’t mean his little bird pooper was shut off!  To save his floors, Andrew came up with an ingenious idea.  Give the bird a car!

Put that schoolin’ to work!

Andrew is currently pursuing a master’s in electrical and computer engineering.  He constructed Bird Buggy, an open-loop, two wheel drive, tri-cycle platform powered by a 12v battery and controlled by a microcontroller.

Watch the UNBELIEVABLE video posted at the top of the blog.  Pepper really gets around!  Best of all, it has a nice little catchall, in case little Pepper has an accident!

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