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Parrot Drives Robotic Buggy
grrlscientist writes "Proving that robots aren't just for people any longer, an African grey parrot, Pepper, has learned to drive a robot that was specially designed for him. Pepper, whose wings are clipped to preventing him from flying around his humans' house and destroying their things, now manipulates the joystick on his riding robot to guide it to where ever he wishes to go. This robotic 'bird buggy' was the brainchild of his human companion, Andrew Gray, a 29-year-old electrical and computer engineering graduate student at the University of Florida."
I now want a parrot.
...that the same human who had the birds wings clipped so it can't move has had to build him a fucking go kart so he's able to move around again.
Fuck you, Andrew Gray, and the horse you rode in on. IF you haven't clipped its hooves at the knee, that is!
Operation Guillotine is in effect.
want a crack up?
Seriously though, this has got to be the most understandable and easy to use interface out there.
My nephew wants one now.
last minute desperate solutions to impossible problems created by other fucking people.
I for one welcome our new buggy riding African Grey Parrot overlords...
There's a difference between clipping (where the flight feathers are cut) and pinioning where part of the wing is amputated. This says "clip". Don't get your panties in a knot unless you know more.
Welcome our new Robotic Parrot Overlords!
Nobodies Prefect
Tidbits for Techs Technology Blog
I for one welcome our new buggy riding African Grey Parrot overlords...
And they'll drive better than most people.
Like, if someone broke his legs and build him a joystick wheelchair and posted the video, oh I am sure he would be oh so thankful.
I can see both sides. Without his wings being clipped he would never be allowed outside, and escape would be a constant worry. Caged birds are dead meat on the outside.
You know what this means right?
Cats with roller skates.
crazy dynamite monkey
Intentionally and involuntarily limiting an animal's means of motion is still cruelty. Say, for example, the bird wanders outside and is attacked by a cat. The bird cannot fly away and cannot run fast enough to escape the cat, dying a frightening death being poked and ripped to shreds. Not even its fancy little buggy would save it from that fate. De-clawing a cat would limit its means from climbing a tree to escape from a big dog. Both arrogant and unnecessary actions.
So yeah, your little explanation has failed to straighten out my panties. And the guy still deserves to be mauled by a bear.
-- Ethanol-fueled
Mauled by a bear? Have some fucking perspective will you?
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
Do keep in mind this isn't a finch though. Greys are attached to their family.
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
I tried t get my Norwegian Blue to drive a buggy but it just sits there and does nothing.
134340: I am not a number. I am a free planet!
Declawing a cat is totally different. You pretty much take a part of their feet along with their nails. Clipping wings though, is totally harmless, it is the exact equivalent of humans clipping their nails (and they grow back exactly like nails). And it does not get the bird into harm in anyway, alteast if you dont let the bird out on its own or something.
Exactly, this is like clipping your kitties claws so it doesn't turn your furniture into confetti. Animal experts will tell you that allowing your cat to have sharp claws will promote its self confidence (knowing it can defend itself) but also promotes damage to furniture, injury to people and the spread of a number of diseases like cat-scratch fever (yeah, I know the album, but really there is a disease too.)
If you have a large parrot, it can do a significant amount of damage, they are strong birds with big wings. Most folks will trim the flight feathers (done by a trained professional so as not to hurt the animal) so the bird can't fly and it stops trying to do anything but walk. This might seem cruel to prevent a bird from flying, but it does in no way harm the bird (the feathers fall out all by themselves and are replaced with perfect new feathers just as your hair falls out and is replaced by perfectly good new hair.) The only question really is if a person should have a highly intelligent animal caged up in a human house as a pet. That's a moral question I have mixed feelings about especially considering that a lot of these animals are now seriously endangered in the wild.
So its totally ok to limit someone's freedom of movement for their own protection?
To offset political mods, replace Flamebait with Insightful.
If it's not powered by a RPi, why is it on /.?
Don't get your panties in a knot unless you know more.
Well, I'm not GP but I am a parrot owner so I'd like to "get my panties knot".
Removing a parrot's main form of movement is comparable to keeping a dog on a leash in one corner of the house, all the time. What's cruel is removing their ability to fly and after that it's just semantics whether you clipped their wings or feathers. Removing a parrot's ability to fly and forcing them to move only where human decides they should move, when human decides they should move there, is a horrible thing to do to animals as intelligent and independent as parrots. It also tells about very twisted attitude towards the pet: Anyone who considers taking a parrot and does some research (and you really should research as they tend to live many years or even many decades) learns that they do tend to chew on stuff. If your reaction to that isn't "I'll have to come up with enough toys for him to chew that he doesn't touch much else" or "I'll have to study positive reinforcement a bit and train him" or "I'll have to come up with a way to keep some things out of his sight" or "Okay, I can't have a pet like that" but rather "Oh, I'll just clip his wings", there is something very wrong.
My parrots fly freely around the house whenever I'm awake and at home (when I'm asleep or at work, I have to keep them in cages for their own safety). They don't tend to ruin anything too valuable though they do occasionally ruin book covers, photo frames and the like... which I knew they would do when I got them six years ago.
For the record, the practice of clipping parrot wings (which means clipping the wing feathers) isn't really alive in many countries anymore (here in Finland it certainly isn't recommended by either of the large pet bird associations).
No ambiguity here. No, sir.
-Bob-
I wish my car had a toilet in the driver seat so I could crap freely while driving around.
"We shall grapple with the ineffable, and see if we may not eff it after all." - Douglas Adams
With larger birds such as African Grey's, there is a really high risk of injury to the bird if they are allowed to grow up flying inside a house. Young birds do not understand glass for instance, and will attempt to fly into it, ultimately doing harm to themselves. To offset this, the non-permanent wing clipping is employed to prevent them from taking flight. This doesn't prevent gliding, however, so they can still leap safely off ledges to the floor to get around. Once they're older, you have to take into account that the nearly or fully grown bird has never flown, so you keep clipping the wings as they don't know how to use them.
I've never owned a Parrot but I grew up with one and my parents opted to not clip his wings. The net result was a lot of snapped feathers and a bird with neurological damage from running into things full tilt. Not pretty.
- No Bounce, No Play -
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
And here you see the primary use to which print newspapers are put today. All the dog owners and other pet owners use it to collect their pets' bowel movements.
It doesn't take any special training. You just gently extend the wing, extend the flight feathers, and cut about 2/3 of the length off the four longest feathers. Just don't cut to the quick!
Clipping the flight feathers doesn't actually stop them from flying. It just makes it very difficult for them to gain altitude. Clipped birds can still make short flights or flutter safely to the ground from any height, but they also can't fly into a ceiling fan if they get spooked.
Fun with Anagarams! LADS HOST, SHALT DOS. HAS DOLTS. AD SLOTHS, HATS SOLD. ASS HO, LTD.
Forget parrots in buggies. What about dogs in real cars?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-20614593
99% sure this is not a hoax.
Remember, this is coming from the website that always badmouths Apple for having too restrictions on their devices "for your own safety". I love /.
My answer to your question is that parrots are birds, they are meant to fly. In your kitten analogy this is like tying their legs, not clipping their claws. If you have to clip the feathers of a parrot to keep it into your home then you shouldn't have a parrot in your home. Leave them where they live with their siblings.
How is this considered a Robot?
Make the buggy powered by the parrots bioelectric enery and then I will be impressed.
Man, lotta PETA supporters or something on /. today. Are you against neutering cats and dogs too?
1. It's not a "free bird". A free bird would be one that's outside in the trees. This is a domesticated bird in a house. But I assume you just threw the "free" part in as an emotional word of some sort to get people onto your side anyway.
2. Clipping the wings is exactly NOTHING like breaking the legs. Since it's only temporarily trimming the end feathers, it's more akin to clipping a cat's nails. It stops the cat from gripping the ground when running, so therefore it must be cruel. If a bird that large were allowed to fly about freely inside, it'd likely do more damage to itself than to objects.
3. Before you even think about talking about declawing, just stop with that horribly incorrect analogy already. Clipped feathers grow back, removing the top knuckle of the cat's paws doesn't. And no, my cat isn't declawed, that's cruel.
4. You're an idiot, and god help you if you ever own a pet.
I just took a cone off my cat from him having had surgery. Are advocating that I should have left the cone off and let him chew away at his stitches instead, because the cone isn't natural, and hinders him?
Not all things people do to pets are for the sake of cruelty. In fact, I would argue that the vast, VAST majority of things we do for pets is because we love them, and it's better for them.
Autonomous Docking Mode Activated
The parrot has been removed. The computer is now in control.
It's searching for the Base station even as we speak. May God have mercy on us all.
Heaven forbid you have a giant mirror in your house. We had parakeets that would go ape shit over the other birds and try to fly to them. We ended up clipping their feathers just so they wouldn't hurt themselves on the mirror.
Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
If I had Mod points you would be +1 obvious :)
...Yeah. Yeah it is. Are you fucking retarded?!? Like no, seriously... are you mentally handicapped. That was by far the most idiotic, what I assume you meant to be rhetorical, question I've read in a very long time. The sheer fact that I'm taking the time to type this instead of just shaking my head at the stupidity speaks wonders in and of itself.
God help you if you ever have kids. Y'know, those baby gates that block off the stairs are there for a reason. Same with why playpens exist. Or seatbelts. Or life preservers (those hinder natural swimming movement). Training wheels on bikes? Mountain climbing harnesses? Hell, mountain climbing anything? Virtually any outdoor sports equipment? Or FUCKING GODDAMN ANYTHING THAT PROTECTS YOU! ESPECIALLY WITH KIDS AND PETS!
Holy christ, I hope to god you just had a brain fart when you posted that and saw the idiocy afterwards, because seriously, what the fuck are you doing on Slashdot of all places if you're actually that stupid?
One is permanently breaking the legs of a creature and the other is clipping something that can grow back... If you somehow think those two events are in any way the same, I feel sorry for you.
Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
People limit pets' movement all the time. Dogs go on leashes or are stuck inside the house. Same with cats, often. We have 2 rabbits. They have to stay inside their pen when not accompanied by humans. Our tortoise has to stay inside its terrarium. Our fish may not swim in the ocean. I'm sure the rabbits would love to run around outside or even all over the house chewing on whatever they can, but it's not safe for them (predators, cars, electrocution), and it's not safe for our stuff. So maybe you're saying nobody should keep pets, but that's a different argument.
If I could rearrange the keyboard, I'd put U and I together.
this is COOL! And really cute too!
Do you let your dog wander around in the street? Loose dogs in my neighborhood end up dead on the freeway very quickly, and loose cats become owl and coyote food. You're damn right we limit their freedom of movement.
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
Thank you for confirming what I've suspected today: It is OK to limit someone's movement as long as it doesn't involve limiting their computer. :)
To offset political mods, replace Flamebait with Insightful.
If this *someone* is in some form of custody, rather than being a independent individual, sure. You don't let the mentally ill or undeveloped outside on their own. Consider pets as "mentally undeveloped". There's nothing to prepare them for what's outside. Same category as children, who need to be supervised while they learn the outside. You also don't want any of these to mess up the inside while they're in there (that's why you have small children "trapped" in cots).
But go on, let every one of these loose and see what happens. Give them the vote, and other rights, while you're at it. I want a parrot for president :)
...Yeah. Yeah it is. Are you fucking retarded?!? Like no, seriously... are you mentally handicapped.
Anger aside, this is actually a very valid, important thing to mention.
Case in point - a few months ago, a 17-year-old autistic boy was struck and killed by a car. it was 2 AM, and he was sitting in the middle of the street just past a low hill, which made him impossible for the driver to see until it was too late.
When asked why their autistic son was sitting in the middle of a public street at 2 o' clock in the morning, the parents responded, "we always let him do what he wants."
Incidentally, the parents are attempting to sue the driver for - brace yourselves - negligence.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
I appreciate the sentiment, but unfortunately I can only post as an AC due to being unable to log in while at work. Username Kabuthunk for what it's worth.
If you have to "drive" it, then it is NOT a robot. Robots are, by definition, capable of sensing their environment and make autonomous decisions.
Nice go kart, but I'd bet a can of spam he's pining for a Ford.
That is nothing at all like my experience with greys. What kind of parrot did your parents have?
As far as young birds getting their first flight feathers it is a good idea to be extra cautious with windows and doors at that time. Curtains/blinds or just making sure that the glass is very dirty will help a lot at that time. It won't take long before they realize the glass is solid. Letting them explore the windows and doors on foot with their beaks before they learn to fly is also probably a good idea. Of course if you live in some uber-contemporary house with mostly glass walls I would advice keeping that glass as dirty as possible.
Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
To be fair, the vast majority of pet parrots, not just in the US, but in the world are raised by humans not by their parents. And usually their parents weren't raised in the wild either. So that ship has already sailed. If the parents decide to breed (and it's not like you can force them) those babies cannot be shipped back to Africa or South America and set free in the wild. Only a small percentage of them would survive at all without instruction from wild parents. I think that would be more cruel. It is already illegal to collect these birds from the wild.
Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
The issue is that some animals are smarter than others, just as you might get bored and actually feel mental anxiety if you were locked in a colourless room for 24hrs of the day different treatment can have different effects on different animals.
Fish wont care if they're in a tank, or the sea (assuming the tank is of adequate size, cleanliness, etc.) because they don't have the mental capacity to know any different.
Dogs are often fine stuck inside a house for a few hours, as they naturally sleep a lot during the day anyway, though outside those hours you should walk them so they can enjoy the scents and so forth.
I used to have a pair of rabbits (and a guinea pig too) and I very clearly remember how if he was in his cage for more than just the night because we'd forgotten to let him out, he'd have his teeth around the wire mesh on his cage and would violently shake it like a prisoner desperate to get out of his cell.
I don't honestly know enough about parrots to say, but they are smart animals so it would make sense that they'd want to exercise their brains a lot and that being stuck in a single place would cause them a lot of issues if they're not otherwise somehow kept busy.
It's not a fair argument therefore to say that because you keep rabbits in cages, because you keep fish in a tank, that parrots must inherently be okay with being stuck in a corner. If you make that argument and ignore the differences in needs and intelligence then you must surely extend your argument to humans as we are just animals too - would you really be happy if you were stuck in a single corner of a room all your life?
It really warms my heart to see so many slashdotters looking at this from the parrots perspective. African greys are awesome birds. It nice to see one appreciated. We learn from Pepper to treat each other better. Thanks for putting me in the holiday spirit.
Geez... what are you, the PETA overlord? Overreact much?
I don't keep birds as pets for a lot of reasons, but suggesting that one be mutilated or killed because they limited the movement of some lesser creature needs to spent a little time on a leather (or faux leather) couch talking about their issues.
When you have kids (if you ever manage to successfully find a mate willing to risk it), please don't harm them if they squash ants or catch ladybugs in a jar. K?
"We love them" that's a strange way to put it. If you love them, then why are you keeping them locked up... You don't love them, you love owning them, you love traiing them and showing them off... at least be honest enough to say it like it is.
He didn't say a single corner of a room. He said his house. That's probably big enough to not be too bored, even for a relatively intelligent bird.
If I could rearrange the keyboard, I'd put U and I together.
I have a 22 y.o. YNA (big green thing, 50% evil) who is very lazy. He would love to go motoring around the house in one of these things.
It's driving ME buggy, TOO!
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Why don't you then bind your cats feet and build him a car to drive around the house? would solve a lot of scratching problems by limiting your cats mobility. But it would sound stupid. Clipping of the wings and building a car to drive around sounds equally stupid unless you've used to clipping birds.
99% of animal cruelty is out of love - like engineering a species that's lovable yet unfit to live without pain. The guy would have an option of keeping his apartment free of things that the bird could get caught into or drop to the floor whilst flying - some people do that after all.
It's just one step toward him being able to pilot a helicopter.
I'm not too sure about that. I mean, he could control the cyclic with his beak, and the anti-torque with his feet, but how would he control the collective and the throttle without hands?
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
Thank you for confirming what I've suspected today: It is OK to limit someone's movement as long as it doesn't involve limiting their computer. :)
I don't let my parrot watch pron on his computer you insensitive clod
I'll chime in because the GP/AC just displayed a great deal of stupidity and didn't understand the OP's question.
The AC's analogies are not limiting innate freedom of movement, but rather are improving or facilitating. His/her analogy of child-rearing is so far off-topic that it's irrational.
The AC should take a moment to actually read and consider than being another angry, stupid person on /.
You've evidently never been to South Florida, where there are enough escaped parrots flying around to fill a Hitchcock movie.
Space game using normal deck of cards: http://BattleCards.org
Very true. That is why, as a loving parent, I allow my infant children to roam freely in traffic, unwashed, unvaccinated, and unsupervised. I'm sure they will thank me as soon as one of them lives long enough to learn to speak.
I appreciate the sentiment, but unfortunately I can only post as an AC due to being unable to log in while at work. Username Kabuthunk for what it's worth.
Thanks for explaining this. I'm obviously a little slow as I've often wondered at the number of well-written and insightful +5 posts made by ACs.
..Mullah or Pope, Preacher or Poet, who was it wrote: "Give any one species too much rope and they'll fuck it up"?
Those are the survivors. Likely a small percentage. Also, I used to live in Central Florida (space coast area), which is nearly as warm, and I never once saw an escaped parrot flying around. So what about the parrots that are kept outside of South Florida?
Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
My parrot Bud has handled the steering wheel a few times and caused no crashes.... yet.
First off, I never realized that so many people here weren't familiar with the practice of clipping a pet birds flight feathers to prevent them from flying. Get a grip--it isn't painful and isn't even permanent, as the wing feathers do occasionally shed & regrow. If you really want to get worked up over something, go look up why the judges at dog shows always fondle the male dogs' testicles.
Second, Andrew must not have heard the old saying about show business--"never work with kids or animals". . . .
Sorry Andrew.
While the 'autonomous docking mode' is technically impressive, it's much more intriguing to watch the bird drive the thing around. Maybe using tank treads would improve the car a bit--for the bird driver, that is. Make it more stable over rough spots at least.
I agree with you points except for... I don't think you have to be a PETA supporter to be against neutering cats and dogs too or at least sensibly understanding the cruelty of it.
Really, if you can't understand the cruelty of it, than *you* shouldn't be a pet owner.
Almost every great writer has written our non-intentional cruelty towards animals.
Bullshit. Ever seen a dog in the city and how unhappy it is? Ever been to San Francisco? How almost every single person who owns a dog in the city is mentally, emotionally unstable and are tyrannical as a human being? I grew up in the country with dogs and I can tell you the VAST difference. Some people are just too emotionally stunted to actually love another creature. Other times, these dogs (especially thoroughbreds) are just a piece of property and disposable.
The vast majority of times people are simply satisfying their selfish need for "love" (possession) with no regard towards the animal's well-being.
You mean, if you stole another person's child and debilitated them and locked them up in your house for the rest of their life? That's the equivalent and not the analogy you smugly suggested.
I am a pet owner and the fucking best at training animals; a whisperer of sorts. You must do things for your animals that are momentarily discomforting for them, but this an irrational comparison towards child-rearing and clipping a bird's wings is just that... irrational.
You are however both being sensational yet raise some deep philosophical issues albeit unintentionally.
Shoot them in the knee and put them in an electric wheelchair designed to only go where they should go. Saves so many headaches.
I would love to integrate a Kinect sensor into this design and change the control scheme a bunch....
Brian Fundakowski Feldman
Those are the survivors. Likely a small percentage.
Maybe, but then, citation needed.
Also, I used to live in Central Florida (space coast area), which is nearly as warm, and I never once saw an escaped parrot flying around.
I've lived in both Indialantic and Fort Lauderdale. The latter was noticeably warmer.
So what about the parrots that are kept outside of South Florida?
They migrate to South Florida? (But then, to be fair, citaton needed.)
(Honestly? I'm not really arguing with you, I'm just sort of being obstreporous.)
Space game using normal deck of cards: http://BattleCards.org
...props for using Linux to power the autonomous vehicle docking.
This sounds awfully similar to PETA's anti-pet rhetoric that ultimately would result in what can't go feral going extinct. Regardless of whether or not you care about the loss of species selectively bred by humans, the fact remains that many of our domesticated critters simply do not belong in your local ecosystem. You may think you're doing your domestic cat a favor by letting it "run wild", but the native wildlife your cat harasses and kills would beg to differ.
"Cockroach Controlled Mobile Robot" is an experimental robotic system that translates the bodily movements of a living, organic insect into the physical locomotion of a three-wheeled robot. Distance sensors at the front of the robot also provide navigation feedback to the cockroach, striving to create a pseudo-intelligent system with the cockroach as the CPU.
Interesting, I had parakeets (one smart, one quite stupid) that would fly up to the floor-to-ceiling mirror and hover there for a few seconds before turning away. Not once did they run into the mirror. Unlike a window, flying toward a mirror will produce the appearance of an imminent collision.
We'd also confuse the cats with the same kind of mirrors (different room). Use a laser pointer, at some distance from the mirror. The cat will lock on to the dot and not notice that there is also a dot in the mirrored reflection. Then you work the dot toward the mirror, with the cat in pursuit. It will still fail to notice the approaching reflection of the dot. Then you move the dot ONTO the mirror where it suddenly appears to split in two, causing the cat much consternation about which one to chase.
How is the Riemann zeta function like Trump rallies? Both have an endless number of trivial zeros.
Training wheels on bikes make them more dangerous to the rider and more difficult to learn proper bicycling. They are a complete failure and fraud.
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