Interaction-Design-in-The-Wild
View the Project on GitHub svonhauske/Interaction-Design-in-The-Wild
Final Project: Presentation
by Sofia von Hauske Valtierra
Luncher: An Enrichment Device
Luncher is inspired by the way in which foxes hunt insects. It plays a low-frequency sound to try to attract the fox. If the fox is able to pinpoint its location and gets close enough to the device, it shoots a treat up into the air, imitating an insect trying to fly away.
Luncher is a portable device that can be placed anywhere in the zoo, hidden amongst plants or grass.
Vulpes vulpes:
Vulpes vulpes, more commonly known as Red Foxes, are members of the Canidae family.
They eat a variety of food, sometimes changing their diet from season to season. They are considered opportunistic feeders who will feed based on availability. Their diets usually include small rodents, rabbits, hare, insects, wild fruits and berries. Foxes are great at scavenging, hunting and caching. They carefully hide food for future use by burying it underground and disguising the spot with leaves and twigs. They will sometimes relocate their provisions.
Red foxes are the smallest members of the dog family, but the largest species of foxes.
- Weight: 3 to 11 Kg
- Height: 10 to 51 cm
- Body Length: 46 to 86 cm
- Tail Length: 30.5 to 55 cm
Red Foxes are predators of small prey; these animals are high-strung and have quick reactions, which means that foxes have to stalk their prey quietly to be able to catch them. A fox’s hearing is very sensitive to lower frequencies, frequencies that correspond to rustling and gnawing sounds of small animals. They are capable of locating sounds within inches of their exact location.
Types of prey:
J. David Henry groups the types of animals Red Foxes eat, into 4 main groups:
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Insects: Crickets, grasshoppers, and beetles. Sometimes flies and moths.
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Lagomorphs: Includes rabbits and hares, who flee by running.
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Small Burrowing Animals: They flee down a burrow or dash under objects like rocks or fallen trees.
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Arboreal Prey: Birds and tree squirrels. These animals have high visual acuity, they flee upwards, and they keep a watch for predators from high perches.
The techniques that foxes use to hunts these types of prey is also different, each one unique to the prey and the circumstances.
Hunting Techniques:
Insects:
Hunting insects is something that foxes do more casually because insects have weak escape behaviors, and they only provide the fox with a small amount of food. Usually, foxes are doing something else, and they hear an insect, and they simply walk over and bite down. When insects hop or fly away, they use their muzzle to poke around, stamp one of its forefeet, or do something called foot stamping. These movements causes insects to move, and then the fox is able to locate them by the sound of rustling or movement.
Citations from Research
_“It is interesting to compare how successful the foxes were at catching various prey. In the hunts I observed, the foxes […] caught insects 82% of the time (77 out of 94 hunts). These differences in success rate are explained by the effectiveness with which the prey escaped. For example, grasshoppers and crickets, the insects hunted most by the foxes, showed feckless escape behaviors. If the foxed missed one of these prey, the insect often hopped only one or two strides away; the fox watched where it landed and was often able to relocate and capture it.” (Henry, Page 63)
“[…] foxes usually hunt insects during another activity; that is, they seldom show searching behavior specifically toward insects. In my study area, insects seem to represent snack food that foxes capture along the way. […] When this opportunity knocks, the fox stops the activity it is engaged in, walks over, bites down, and chews up the grasshoppers, cricket or beetle. […] Sometimes the fox misses in its initial capture attempt, watches where the insect lands, and searches for it by poking its muzzle into shrubs or stamping one of its forefeet on the forest floor where it expects the insect to be.” (Henry, Page 65)
“Usually a fox is traveling along, scavenging, cleaning out a den, or doing some other activity when it happens to detect an insect in nearby grasses or in the leaves on the forest floor. Then the fox stops what it is doing, walks over, bites down and chews up the prey. Many times it is as simple as that. On other occasions, however, the insect hops or flies away, and the fox must search for it by poking its muzzle into shrubs or stamping one of its forefeet on the forest floor where it suspects the insect might be. After prodding the insect to move, the fox tries to locate it from small movements or rustling sounds. David Macdonald in Great Britain reports red foxes using foot stamping when they are hunting earthworms […].” (Henry Page 65)
“Insect remains were found in one hundred and fifty-one, or 64.8 percent of the den droppings, a much higher frequency than in those in the trail during May or June. It seems likely that the fox pups supply the insect portion of the diet by their own efforts. The beetles probably furnish both play and food to the pups as well as good hunting experience. Catching beetles no doubt develops in the young foxes judgment of distance, pouncing precision, sound localization, and other hunting qualities of value to a fox.” (Murie, Page 32)
Previous enrichment testing:
Feeding enrichment in an opportunistic carnivore: The red fox
Claudia Kistler, Daniel Hegglin, Hanno Würbel, Barbara König
They compared four different methods of feeding enrichment that were based on natural foraging strategies of opportunistic carnivores, red foxes. The feeding enrichments consisted of electronic feeders delivering food (unpredictable in time); these were successively combined with one of the three additional treatments: a self-service food box, manually scattering food (unpredictable in space), and an electronic dispenser delivering food unpredictably both in space and time.
All four feeding enrichments significantly enhanced individual behavioral diversity and activity compared to a conventional feeding treatment. The proportion of food-related behaviors, such as food searching or food acquiring, increased the most during the feeding treatment with the highest spatial and temporal unpredictability. There was also an increase in exploratory behaviors, such as locomotion and monitoring behavior. The findings show that any temporal and/or spatial unpredictability in the presentation of food has a stimulating effect on the foxes’ behavior.
Other Enrichment Used at The Zoo
- Puzzle feeders
- Hanging toys
- Squeaky toys
Process
Initial Sketch
First Iteration
Renderings:
Dispensing Mechanism:
Dimensions:
Second Iteration
Renderings:
Dimensions:
First Prototype
Second Prototype
Third Iteration
Renderings:
Dispensing Mechanism:
Dimensions:
Fourth Iteration
Renderings:
Third Prototype
Materials
HDPE - High-Density Polyethylene:
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High strength-to-density ratio
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Resistant to mildew, mold, and rotting
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Resistant to corrosion, cracking, and weathering
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Food-safe
Color:
Different shades of brown or green so it blends in with the environment.
Components
- Arduino
- Breadboard
- PIR Sensor
- 8 Ohm Speaker
- DFPlayer Mini MP3 Player
- 2 Micro Servos
- 1 Standard Servo
- HM-10 Bluetooth 4.0 BLE Module
- PCA9685 16 Channel 12 Bit PWM Servo Motor Driver
Interaction
- Zookeper: Activates the low-frequency sound through Bluetooth.
- Fox: Hears the sound and tries to pin-point its location.
- Device: Waits for movement.
- Fox: Approaches device with either muzzle or by stamping close by.
- Device: Detects movement, dispenses treat and launches it into the air like a flying insect.
- Fox: Catches treat.
Final Prototype
Video
Code
// Final Final Final
#include <SoftwareSerial.h>
#include "pitches.h"
//SERVO
#include <Wire.h>
#include <Adafruit_PWMServoDriver.h>
Adafruit_PWMServoDriver pwm = Adafruit_PWMServoDriver();
#define SERVOMIN 120 // this is the 'minimum' pulse length count (out of 4096)
#define SERVOMAX 610
const int dispenser = 0;
int push = map(150, 0, 180, SERVOMIN, SERVOMAX);
int pull = map(0, 0, 180, SERVOMIN, SERVOMAX);
const int arm = 1;
int stretch = map(115, 0, 180, SERVOMIN, SERVOMAX);
int relax = map(160, 0, 180, SERVOMIN, SERVOMAX);
const int latch = 2;
int lock = map(100, 0, 180, SERVOMIN, SERVOMAX);
int unlock = map(160, 0, 180, SERVOMIN, SERVOMAX);
//SENSOR
const int sensor = 9;
int state = 0;
int val;
int ledPin = 13;
String readString;
void setup()
{
Serial.begin(9600);
pinMode(sensor, INPUT);
pinMode(ledPin, OUTPUT);
pwm.begin();
pwm.setPWMFreq(60);
pwm.setPWM(dispenser, 0, pull);
pwm.setPWM(arm, 0, relax);
delay(500);
pwm.setPWM(latch, 0, lock);
delay(500);
}
void loop()
{
//BLUETOOTH
while (Serial.available())
{
delay(3);
char c = Serial.read();
readString += c;
}
if (readString.length() > 0)
{
Serial.println(readString);
if (readString == "on")
{
tone(8, NOTE_C4, 1000);
state = 1;
delay(500);
}
if (readString == "off")
{
digitalWrite(ledPin, LOW);
state = 0;
}
readString = "";
}
//CATAPULT
if (state == 1)
{
val = digitalRead(sensor);
Serial.println(val);
if (val == 1)
{
digitalWrite(ledPin, HIGH);
pwm.setPWM(latch, 0, lock);
pwm.setPWM(dispenser, 0, push);
delay(500);
pwm.setPWM(dispenser, 0, pull);
delay(1000);
pwm.setPWM(arm, 0, stretch);
delay(2000);
pwm.setPWM(latch, 0, unlock);
delay(5000);
pwm.setPWM(arm, 0, relax);
delay(500);
pwm.setPWM(latch, 0, lock);
state = 0;
}
delay(100);
}
}
Next Steps
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Tune motion sensor
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Test different sounds and different frequencies.
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Test launching height and distance.
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Build multiple devices to create a system around the enclosure.
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Adjust treat dispenser to fit different treats.
References
- Henry, J. David. How to Spot a Fox. Chapters Pub., 1993.
- Henry, J. David. Red Fox: the Catlike Canine. Smithsonian Institution Press, 1996.
- Macdonald, David W. Running with the Fox. Unwin Hyman, 1989.
