The Drone That’s Saving Ottawa From Poop | Hacker News Reader

The Drone That’s Saving Ottawa From Poop

modernfarmer.com

36 pointschaosmachine25 comments

The City of Ottawa blames geese for E. coli despite routinely dumping raw sewage into the Ottawa river due to linked storm and sanitary sewers. The beaches are closed after significant rain storms.

Parents (ie. voters) see the poop, they don't see the sewage dumping.

In general, it is like people blaming cats for decimating birds population (in SF parks for example) while people happily gather wild birds' eggs (seems it is popular in Asian cuisine as i saw only Asians doing it).

Note: cats actually protect birds population from rats (who is actually able to eat eggs) and by occasionally eating an ill bird (we've been through this with wolves). Unfortunately cats can't protect birds from people.

Of course you gamify this, imagine a drone that can return 'home' and land on a charger (this is quite doable) when it has low power. Now at a POV camera and WiFi link.

Now setup of video game 'drone consoles' that for $5/15 minutes you can fly a drone and score points by scaring off geese. Some failsafes that don't let the operator fly out of the area, into the water etc. And voila.

Or host a programming competition to create the best AI to do the scaring/recharging automatically.

An even better [1] competition would be figure out how to herd them to an easy to clean up place, and then get them to take off :-)

[1] "... and they tend to empty their cloacas upon takeoff," -- http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/08/science/08qna.html

>Now setup of video game 'drone consoles' that for $5/15 minutes you can fly a drone and score points

we already have this at some Nevada Air Force Base and the pay is about the same, around $20/hour.

Well, no it's not "quite doable"

Unless your definition of doable is "the landing zone must be in the middle of a large open space and clearly marked with highly contrasting colors". And must not be experiencing winds stronger than 10 or so mph. And can't have any obstructions nearby like trees, houses or even telephone poles. And absolutely can not have varying conditions like vehicles driving around that the computer has to plot the trajectory of.

People seem to think that autonomous drones are capable of flying into a carport and neatly landing on a dinner plate sized landing strip, when realistically even a human operator has difficulty performing that kind of feat.

Sorry if that comes of as overly harsh. Everyone seems to think that "OMG drones will do that". The reality is very different, they're substantially more limited and don't even get me started on what a realistic payload for one would be.

Ottawa finally makes Hacker News. Too bad poop-drones are the reason. Some day I have to write a blog post on why I left Ottawa for Silicon Valley.

15 miles away:

http://www.ottawasun.com/2013/11/26/drone-sets-off-security-...

(near the river too)

A little off topic, but since you're there and I'm here, what are the top three things you miss about Bytown and what are the three things you so don't miss that just thinking about them for a moment causes you to forgive whatever grief you are experiencing in SV?

While we're at it, what are the three best things about SV, and what are the three things that sometimes make you wish you were back here? (They may be different from the three best things about Ottawa.)

Just to be clear, I am now in Silicon Valley after spending a couple of years in Ottawa. Miss: 1) Close to friends & family 2) Really great activities/camps for younger kids 3) Lots of parks, green space 4) Canadians are really more polite, and the pace is more relaxed. 5) People lead healthier lives, many more people outside (this does not stop me from doing same in SV, but culture is more work and convenience/car oriented). 6) Cost of living

Don't miss: 1) Tech scene is anemic. Tech companies (even the shiny new ones that are moderately successful) are conservative and can be a little arrogant when it comes to hiring. It doesn't matter how capable you are, as an employee you have little leverage. 1.5) Investors don't know much beyond telecommunications. 2) After the valley, Ottawa seems really small. 3) Um yeah, winter (although I surprisingly enjoyed taking my son to hockey on early mornings) 4) Not a lot of ambitious people.

Silicon Valley: Likes: 1) Much greater depth of talent, not just in new technologies, but in product, strategy, business development, etc. 2) More going on culturally. 3) More wealth. 4) Weather. 5) Environment which seems to germinate most new ideas in tech, probably due to employee mobility which has a cross-pollination effect as they move from org to org.

High speed airships are probably a better architecture for this application than n-copters. There are remove controlled airships that can do 30 mph and they don't need to expend energy to stay aloft. They also won't fall like a rock out of the sky, so long as their gasbags haven't been punctured.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ecSXRK9ZPk

Depending on the frequency of the wolf-call, speakers to produce them and their power system could be made quite light.

I'd guess they aren't well suited to fly at the coast because of the high wind speeds. I would imagine that it's quite hard to get the blimp down when it's caught in thermal updraft also.

True. These things would have to cope with winds of up to 75 mph to be active most of the time.

And next, for our convenience, devices hovering ten feet overhead trailing - and probably also blasting - ads.

I think we have a winner for the $1000000 'Drones for Good' prize!

The United Arab Emirates “Drones for Good” Award:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7733697

Biggest problem: it doesn't look like the drones have an anti-collision software built in, so a single goose running amok/panicking is enough to sink the drone...

Bird police eh? I'm not too sure this is a good thing or not, I mean those birds have a right to be there too right?

yes (bird police), and no (birds have adverse possession rights? - hahaha).

They don't vote and they don't pay rent, so they can gtfo!

It's sad that I knew this was about Canada geese as soon as I read the title ;)

We so need a drone that saves us from poop in San Francisco.

Its not a drone. Its an RC copter.

And, judging from the video, why does this require a drone? Could't a dude in boat achieve the same ends just as easily?

works for geese. Will definitely work for people. Khosla may find it very useful.

Canada Geese: They make urban green spaces unusable. Kill them all and let God sort it out.

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