We now present a weekend DIY tech challenge for urban geeks tired of cleaning thickly caked bird droppings off their cars. It involves replicating a Swiss research project by linking their cameras to a computer, and programming that to automatically dispatch a drone to scatter pigeons that have placed themselves in bombs-away position.
That, ish-ly, is what researchers at Switzerland’s École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) did when they noticed large groups of pigeons were causing the roof of the university’s SwissTech Convention Center to be frequently cleared of dense layers of droppings. The recurring cleaning efforts were laborious and costly (not to mention gag-inspiring). But they were also necessary to remove untold kilos of muck that can spread disease and – if left to collect unchecked – could feasibly undermine the roof’s stability. The damage done by such avian waste is no laughing matter: Some studies show pigeon poop costs $1.1…
