The Portable Dog Killer

Ok, first off, this does NOT kill or harm dogs.  Just annoys them.  The device was created by Steve Gibson, one of my idols, when he was 12 or 14.  He is a computer security expert and programmer, host of the Security Now podcast from TWiT and developer of the hard drive repair program Spinrite as well as many other awesome stuff.

In short, the Portable Dog Killer, or PDK, was made to address a problem of a dog who would bark and scare people.  His solution was to make a focused sound generator set to the tune of 16 KHz.  Human hearing is 20 to 20,000 Hz, or 20 KHz.  The tone is low enough he to hear it to make sure it worked, but high and loud enough that it irritates the dog.  He succeeded to train the dog to stop charging the fence and scaring people.  Of course, being a middle-schooler, you can bet he took it to school to show his friends.

This is where the PDK catches my attention.  He and his friends at school would point the PDK at seagulls and fire!  The seagulls reaction, according to Steve, “what [PDK] did was it nearly knocked the seagulls out of the sky.”  Eventually the seagulls learned to stay away from the beach.  He talks some about how he built the device, including the most important part, the 555 timer.  Looking for the 555 timer has found me both how to wire the 555 timer in general to make a tone or flash lights, as well as full plans for the PDK.  More about that plan, the PDK 1.5 in the next post.

You can listen about it at here (21MB), or read the transcript at here.  The episode is 281.

From the guy with his eye on the sky, Travis...the camping lifeguard

Mind Mapping the Seagull Mind

The other day I did the first step of the seagull simulator by making a mind map.  A mind map is a map of ideas using a hierarchy format.  It allows me to create ideas and list what goes with those ideas.

There are two maps I made; one is what variables and methods are going into each object (seagull, people, so on).  An object is something I just need to create once, then can create multiple objects of the same thing.  Its like saying I have a box with a default person in it.  Written on the outside of the box is what shirt they are wearing, age, personality values, their location, and so on.  Then I can use this base object and request 100 people, each given a random appearance and personality, and able to have their own location.  Same thing happens with seagulls.

The other map is the order of stuff I need to do to make the program work.  I am going to work from the furthest item to the center, and can only progress when everything below an item is done and made green.

Below is the mind map.  To view it in detail click the image.  Please remember I am not a seagull expert, I am a programmer.  Normally an expert would tell me what I need to know to make the program.  I have made estimations and guesses about numbers such as how long they remember.  If you are a seagull expert let me know if you have better numbers.  Or for anyone, if you think I am missing something or whatever, just leave a comment.
Oh, if you read it, after you click to go to the picture there is a zoom button on the top right of the picture.  That will allow you to see the original picture.

From the guy with his eye on the sky, Travis...the seagull hunting camping lifeguard

Lets go Hunting

Last week or so, the beach I lifeguard at, Bayview Beach in Ashland, Wi, was closed due to high e-coli levels.  Part of the reason the e-coli levels were so high was due to seagulls and their poop.  When it rains, their poop, and everything that is in it gets washed into Lake Superior and can raise the e-coli.

They tend to hang out near Bayview Beach as we have wood pilings that they can sit on to rest and a beach and two grocery stores to get free food from.  People also like to feed them, which trains them to come over more.  In the next post, Seagull Hunting, I talk about seagull training.

Since I went hunting, I have gotten a bit obsessed with shooing seagulls, I am going to break off this topic from The Camping Lifeguard.  This blog is going to be all about repelling seagulls, including a Seagull-People interaction simulator, and hopefully building the “Portable Dog Killer”.

One last thing.  During all of this I do not condone the harm or killing of seagulls. Anything I say or do or suggest is only for repelling seagulls.  If any harm does come to a seagull its either by not moving out of the way of my bike, or having a heart attack from being scared too much.

From the guy with his eye on the sky, Travis...the seagull hunting camping lifeguard