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CrowBot Bits and Crowbot Junior

A project log for Project Crow

A camera and Computer Vision to capture wildlife and pipe the data feed to a variety of endpoints including a dashboard and databases.

brenda-armourBrenda Armour 04/15/2017 at 18:370 Comments

Well I tinkered with the Sensor Tag WIFI and now (I hope) have it running. I took the tag apart and this time tried a Panasonic AAA battery. These appear to be slightly smaller in diameter. The circuit board stayed put when I performed a reset. The red light started to flash and I was able to provision the tag to my Blackberry. I really really want to use this because the distance is longer than the Bluetooth version. I am curious to see if I can use this as a hot spot and connect the Raspberry Pi to it.

I have a WiFi extender for the Pi coming in next week. So now I have a couple of options to extend the WiFi for the CrowBot which also includes using my laptop as a hot spot.

I want to include my Raspberry Pi Noir camera to see in the dark. I also will be testing dressing the crowbot up to be more inviting to the birds. The weather continues to improve so I am anxious for some testing.

Today I acquired a $3.00 toy to see if it can produce enough LED light for Night Vision and may be of some interest to the birds. Yup that's a duck head. No crow head available but I think I can take this apart and use it for my own crow head. If the button is pressed a second time than it starts blinking.

Okay I had the Crowbot out for testing. I did get this image of my friend's dog Haley. The interesting observation is that is it identified the picnic table but not the dog. mmm...more testing

My Crowbot Junior is now assembled . She is much smaller than the Crowbot but has three layers.

Her purpose will be to detect motion. I have installed the motion software and tested the camera last night and this morning. I also set up a second Dropbox App for the photos. It's too sensitive and needs to be tuned up. But I am happy with the initial results.

I will be using the PiFace Digital 2 for motor control.

Now I need to use a wire splicers connector to connect CrowBot Junior to the PiFace. At this point the connectors do not match. Nope not connecting to the terminals as is. The battery pack in the front is good to go.


The LB-Link Wireless USB ADAPTER was a big win. It was a simple plug and play for the Raspberry Pi and has extended the WIFI connection. I cannot wait to try it out this weekend. The weather forecast looks promising. Crows, seagulls, sparrows , foxes are welcomed to the backyard.


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