Squirrel Feeder

I spent yesterday trawling through ebay finding exciting digital cameras that took photos whenever their infrared beam sensed an animal walking by. These, I thought, could happily be photographing all the squirrels that dropped by to eat nuts while I filled my time with things other than sitting in the rain waiting for a squirrel to turn up. Only problem was I'd have to import from the USA at $200 a time. So I had a bit of a chat with Jon who happened to appear on msn messenger. Jon knows about these sort of things having just finished his degree on somehting electrical and computer/circuit board orientated. Anyway, he thought something designed for photo-ing deer might not notice a rather small squirrel. Good point. Then he said he could design a 'light trap' which would photo squirrels whenever they passed a little beam of light! Ingenious. I've attempted a bit of a sketch to show that squirrels will have to sit on a little platform to get the nuts, perfect for the position of a beam of light that'll photo them when it gets cut of by the squirrel. Now to find some cheap digital cameras...

Believe it or not, this is actually the standard way to feed squirrels. Apparently nothing else has the brains or brawn to open the lid.

# posted by henry @ 3:43 pm