Joshua Klein
The Crow Vending Machine
The Crow Vending Machine is a device that uses Skinnerian training to teach crows to insert found coins in exchange for peanuts.
http://www.wireless.is/crows/index.html
Crows are uniquely well-suited for this project as they're naturally attracted to shiny objects, have an unprecedented ability for logical thought, and are being selectively bred for intelligence by the pressures of human expansion into their natural habitats. Their population is skyrocketing along with this expansion, with an estimated upper limit of 2-6 crows *per city block* over the entire urban United States.
At the same time, upwards of $215,529,091 USD a year (an average 5.5% attrition rate for the $1,185,410,000 in coins issued in 2006) is lost in the US alone, the majority of it in urban environments.
If we are exercising evolutionary pressure on a species to adapt to us, doesn't it make sense to incorporate them into our society rather than to attempt to eradicate them?
The crow vending machine is designed to be deployed anywhere crows are living in close proximity to humans - which is the primary place they live these days. Once the device is deployed it should automatically attract crows as a food resource. Over time, it will shape their behavior from simply eating from the machine to dropping in found coins in exchange for peanuts.
Once the local crows have learned the behavior, visiting crows will learn by observing them. Those crows will teach their young. As a result, once the initial training period is over the machine can be deployed in neighboring areas with good expectation that the learning will transfer and the \"workforce\" will grow.
The vending machine is a simple box with a platform large enough for one crow at a time to stand on (to prevent standard thieving behavior from other crows). The system uses a series of stepper motors, a coin sorting mechanism, and an arduino chip to deliver peanuts and coins in response to stimulus provided by the crows and according to a prespecified schedule. This \"shapes\" the crow\'s behavior such that, over time, they learn to deposit coins in order to receive a peanut.
At the same time, upwards of $215,529,091 USD a year (an average 5.5% attrition rate for the $1,185,410,000 in coins issued in 2006) is lost in the US alone, the majority of it in urban environments.
If we are exercising evolutionary pressure on a species to adapt to us, doesn't it make sense to incorporate them into our society rather than to attempt to eradicate them?
The crow vending machine is designed to be deployed anywhere crows are living in close proximity to humans - which is the primary place they live these days. Once the device is deployed it should automatically attract crows as a food resource. Over time, it will shape their behavior from simply eating from the machine to dropping in found coins in exchange for peanuts.
Once the local crows have learned the behavior, visiting crows will learn by observing them. Those crows will teach their young. As a result, once the initial training period is over the machine can be deployed in neighboring areas with good expectation that the learning will transfer and the \"workforce\" will grow.
The vending machine is a simple box with a platform large enough for one crow at a time to stand on (to prevent standard thieving behavior from other crows). The system uses a series of stepper motors, a coin sorting mechanism, and an arduino chip to deliver peanuts and coins in response to stimulus provided by the crows and according to a prespecified schedule. This \"shapes\" the crow\'s behavior such that, over time, they learn to deposit coins in order to receive a peanut.