animal

11 Articles

Meshtastic Adds Wireless Connectivity To Possum Trap

March 12, 2025 by 10 Comments

Perhaps every gardener to attempt to grow a tomato, lettuce, or bean has had to contend with animals trying to enjoy the food before the gardener themselves can, whether it’s a groundhog, rabbit, mouse, crow, or even iguana. There are numerous ways to discourage these mischievous animals from foraging the garden beds including traps, but these devices have their downsides as well. False alarms can be a problem as well as trapping animals that will be overly aggravated to be inside the trap (like skunks) and while the latter problem can’t easily be solved by technology, the former can with the help of Meshtastic.

[Norman Jester]’s problem was an errant possum, but these nocturnal animals generally come out while humans are asleep, and other nighttime animals like rats can activate the trap and then escape. To help with this, a Meshtastic node was added to the San Diego mesh using a 3.5mm audio jack as a detector. When the trap is activated, the closing door yanks a plug out of the jack, alerting the node that the trap has been closed. If it’s a false alarm the trap can be easily and quickly reset, and if a possum has found its way in then it can be transported to a more suitable home the next day.

It’s worth noting that American possums (distinct from the Australian animals of the same name) are an often-misunderstood animal that generally do more good than harm. They help to control Lyme disease, eat a lot of waste that other animals won’t, don’t spread rabies, and don’t cause nearly as much disruption to human life as other animals like feral cats or raccoons. But if one is upsetting a garden or another type of animal is causing a disturbance, this Meshtastic solution does help solve some of the problems with live traps. For smaller animals, though, take a look at this Arudino-powered trap instead.

Thanks to [Dadsrcworkbench] for the tip!

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Equipping Rats With Backpacks To Find Victims Under Rubble

February 5, 2023 by 20 Comments

When it comes to demining or finding victims after a disaster, dogs are well-known to aid humans by sniffing out threats and trapped humans with ease. Less well-known, but no less impressive are rats, with the African giant pouched rat being the star of the show. Recently a student at the Dutch Technical University of Eindhoven (TU/e) has demonstrated how these rats can sniff out buried victims, aided by a high-tech backpack that gives them a communication link back to their human handler.

All of this is done in association with the Belgian-registered and Tanzania-based NGO APOPO, whose achievements include training gold medal winner Magawa the rat, who helped find 71 landmines and dozens more types of UXO over a 5-year career. These landmine-hunting rats are known as HeroRATs and have been helping demine nations since the 1990s. They may be joined by RescueRats in the near future.

Each RescueRat is equipped with a backpack that contains a camera and battery, as well as GPS and altimeter. Each backpack includes a button that the rat is trained to press when they have found a victim — essentially dropping a pin on their human rescuer’s maps.

Figuring out the location of the victim inside the rubble pile is the real challenge. This is where a (LoRa) radio beacon in the backpack is triangulated using receivers placed around the area, allowing the rescuers to determine with reasonable accuracy where to focus their efforts.

(Thanks to [Roel] for the tip!)

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Backyard with a squirrel maze

Fort Knutz – Squirrels Go All Mission Impossible

April 26, 2022 by 22 Comments

[Mark Rober] has a bird feeder in his back yard. Also, squirrels who eat the seed. So, as one does, he built a nine part squirrel obstacle course with a reward of walnuts at the end, and filmed them beating the course.

(Spoiler – this is all much better in the video, which we’ve placed below the break).

His four backyard squirrels enter a ‘Casino’ and avoid the plushie ‘security’.  From there it’s across a rod mounted on bearings, leap into a crate under a helicopter, which zip-lines to a brick wall with randomly moving bricks, and into their hideout.