Squirrel story sharing: I My back yard is mostly wooded on a hillside, alot of critters travel thru.  Deer herds eat my deer resistant shrubs through out winter. My other friends include bears, racoons, opossums, chipmunks , moles,  mice, snakes, groundhogs, bunnies, even a red fox wandered thru my yard last week.  

None of these animals pester me crazy like the squirrels.  There is a young oak tree in the side yard that produced its first batch of acorns this year. 

I raked the acorns up to save them for winter feeding the animals. Nearly all the acorns sprouted in a bag I'd hung them in, so I started planting the acorn sprouts into dixie cups.  

I had well over 60 cups with acorn sprouts - then the squirrels found them. Now I had 40. There was still acorns coming in, refilled the cups and put some acorns into hanging planters. 

The squirrels made a mid afternoon raid while I had gone inside for a bit. They chew off the roots and make off the the rest of the nut. We did that cycle a couple more times. Those squirrels run into a nearby tree and mock me. They chatter and shake their tails like a rattlesnake, waiting for me to leave and resume the raid. 

The sprouts were outgrowing the dixie cups, so each one was transferred into 2 litre plastic bottles with the tops removed. To keep the squirrels out, the planters were put into big Tupperware containers with lids. 

Last night the temperature was just below freezing, so this morning I moved the Tupperware containers into the morning sun and removed the tops. There wasnt a squirrel in sight.  I later checked and a dozen nice sized sprouts had the roots chewed off and the nut gone.

Walking over to the driveway, one squirrel shot out from underneath the deck. I didnt catch them red handed, but  it was close enough.  

I'm thinking to build a squirrel guard using a Raspberry Pi Pico and a couple HC SR04 ultrasonic sensors. The system wont look for squirrels or measure distance, just continually pound them with pings and drive them out of their minds.  I'll power it from a car battery if I have to  :-)  

Sounds like time to build an exploding tulip bulb. 

I was very pleased to see one of my previous festive Project14 attempts featured on the main Element14 splash window (Merry Boxes and LEDs). It still makes me laugh now. I still have the box although sadly it no longer works - I'm not sure where the controller went. I still have the Father Christmas's as well.

I would quite like to do something with solar cells and rechargeable batteries attached to a mobile robot carrying a light-up Christmas tree as an outdoor Christmas decoration. Many challenges to overcome there: not enough light, too cold, snow! (hopefully). I might even be able to use it to scare off the squirrel which has taken to digging up and eating my tulips.

Dubbie

Interesting theme back again.

My proposal is mini aquarium, with small fishes roaming on desktop. Unlike normal size aquarium with automatic temperature control and oxygen ventilation, mini aquarium is hard to keep water quality good for fishes. I shall try to build one in small pot as present.

Arduino is good in for this proposal, control motor and sensing temperature. But I shall try with FPGA Digilent's Cmod S7 Board, a little difficult, but fun indeed. Since there is no wireless function for Cmod S7, the remoete control over cloud is not included.

Seems like a good chance to finally own an oscilloscope. I'm going to apply for this Project 14 challenge.

My holiday gift idea consists of two gifts.

Pine cones and customised design/photo on a plexiglass.

I have always found pine cones to be aesthetically pleasing. Pine cones are only found in higher altitude areas. I first got to see them in the Himachal Pradesh, a Himalayan state in India. I have collected some pine cones to gift them to my friends.

The idea is to enclose the pine cone in a cube made of transparent plexiglass/acrylic sheet. Then paste some SMD RGB LEDs on the edge of the plexiglass and interface them with an Arduino. The LEDs on the plexiglass give some nice lighting effects and this can make a nice gift for my friends who do not stay in hilly areas or haven't seen pine cones. 

Another idea is also similar but instead of a cube of plexiglass, a single sheet with LEDs pasted on the edge gives a nice glow to the entire transparent sheet of plexiglass. One can paste a photo or dried flowers and decorate the plexiglass like a photoframe. The SMD LEDs will again be controlled using Arduino and various light effects like fading, blinking can be generated and multiple colours can be obtained by combining the RGB LEDs. I'll put some pictures of the plexiglass with LEDs as a test which I have already tried out.