BirdFeedR is a bird-only feeder that keeps thieving squirrels away

Bird feeders seem to attract both birds and squirrels in equal measure. But while birds tend to eat just a little when they’re peckish, squirrels are voracious and will happily gobble up all of the seeds — leaving nothing to entice birds. To keep the squirrels at bay, David Groom leveraged the Arduino® UNO™ Q to build a “bird-only feeder” called BirdFeedR.

BirdFeedR dispenses bird seed on demand, but only when it recognizes a bird. If something else, like a rascally squirrel, tries to get involved, BirdFeedR will simply refuse to do anything. It will log the event as something detected, but it won’t dispense food unless that thing is a bird.

Groom was able to easily pull that off without spending a fortune, thanks to the UNO Q along with a USB webcam. He was even able to take advantage of Arduino® App Lab‘s Detect Objects on Camera example, which is made possible through the Video Object Detection Brick. That works using the FOMO (Faster Objects, More Objects) model from Edge Impulse and performed so well that Groom used it as is. It runs on the SBC (single-board computer) brain of the UNO Q and communicates with the MCU (microcontroller) via the standard Bridge calls that make the UNO Q so powerful.

On the MCU side, the Arduino sketch simply tells the STM32 to sweep a servo motor a handful of times. The servo motor actuates a mechanism to push bird feed out from the hopper and on to a platform where the birds can get to it. 

Groom even made use of the onboard LED matrix to display a big “X” if the thing detected isn’t a bird, or an adorable bird face if the thing detected is a bird. Now he can rest easy, knowing dastardly squirrels aren’t chowing down on the bird seed.

More details on the project can be found in Groom’s Hackster write-up.