HC Gilje's Wind-Up Birdbots
HC Gilje and team have created Wind-Up Birds, as part of the UT-21 project in a Lillehammer, Norway forest. The automated avians tap like woodpeckers every 5 minutes. We have included some of what the experiment was meant to do, because we certainly can't convey it as well as they do.
"How will nature treat them, with hostillity or acceptance? How will the wind-up birds adapt to heat/cold wet/dry conditions? Will small insects creep inside the
circuitry creating possible short circuits, beetles eat the wood, squirrels use the wood slit as nut storage (or the roof as a slide?), birds use it as a shelter, etc.? Will they be treated as foreign objects or accepted into the local eco-system? How do real woodpeckers react? Are they threatened, attracted, or not bothered? Will they use the roof as a pecking drum?"
After 15 minutes, an authentic woodpecker joined in, but perhaps he simply wanted to see what all the fuss was about.
Via Wind-Up Birds Project
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Posted by Sheila Franklin at September 16, 2008 9:17 AM
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