Train an army of crows to gather treasure for you

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By Sean Michael Ragan
Posted 2009/10/15 @ 1:14 pm
Category Art & Design, Electronics, Energy, General, Makers, Open Source Hardware, Science

Josh Klein developed a machine that trains crows to trade coins for peanuts. Literally, for peanuts. So you fill this thing with peanuts and set it out, say, in a public park, and the crows will scour the ground for loose change, carry it to the machine, and drop it in a slot in exchange for food. The project, dubbed “CrowBox,” made a big splash when he unveiled it back in 2007. Now he’s made the complete plans for the CrowBox freely available online so you can roll your own. And there’s no reason you couldn’t train your fly-monkeys-fly to gather other crow-portable objects. Twenty-dollar bills? Keys? iPods? Human eyes? The possibilities are endless. Set one up at the beach! Train seagulls to trade whole wallets for pre-shucked oysters!

BY Sean Michael Ragan

I am descended from 5,000 generations of tool-using primates. Also, I went to college and stuff. I write for MAKE, serve as Technical Editor for MAKE magazine, and develop original DIY content for Make: Projects.

In the Maker Shed

9 Responses to Train an army of crows to gather treasure for you

Sean Carnes on October 15th, 2009 at 2:29 pm said:

Is there any video footage of this in action? Before anyone says so, i googled and searched youtube. I’d really like to see even a short clip of a crow landing, dropping in a coin and getting a reward. Not that i don’t believe it works, but i’m debating on building one. I’d like to see it function before investing so much time, you know?

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- Morder on October 15th, 2009 at 2:47 pm said:
  
  I seriously doubt the amount of lost change within a mile of the box would make you any money. The worst that could happen is birds could actually start stealing money from unsuspecting patrons of business or pulling coins out of nearby fountains. Having the box with anything similar happening will definitely run you into some trouble. The point of the experiment is the big picture: Training birds to pick up trash or something similar. – Morder
  
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  Morder on October 15th, 2009 at 2:57 pm said:
  
  I should clarify: The creators point is to make crows useful to society rather than be the pest that humans make them out to be.
  
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  Kristoffer Berdal on January 29th, 2010 at 11:44 am said:
  
  Coindidently, i saw this in a Donald Duck cartoon years back when i was a kid. Not sure if this was a DD cartoon translated from english, or just made in norwegian.
  
  But i am positive “Mr. Duck” trained pidgeons to do the same.
  
  If it happened in Donald, it must ofcourse work in reality
  
  Kind of cool in any case though.
  
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Volkemon on October 15th, 2009 at 7:31 pm said:

@Sean Carnes-

Yeah, I am almost crying “shenan…” Even the video file on the link, about 4 minutes long, shows what looks to be birdfeeder level activity. One would think that with a goal of this magnatude, ANY sort of video clip, even with captive, trained brds, would be important.

The caption with the video asks us to note the seagulls appearing to be clueless.. looks more like the crows are fighting over the birdfeeder and the seagulls are too timid to enter the fray.

ht**tp://ww*w.wireless.is/pr**ojects/crows/ima**ges/ is the link- take out the **. Seems if I post a comment with a link it is never seen again….’held for approval’. Even if my text is entered right..

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Thomas on October 15th, 2009 at 11:25 pm said:

Link: google josh klein retraction, 4th link or so at regret the error dot com.

“The Times has since learned that Klein was never at the Binghamton Zoo, and there were no crows on display there in June 2008. He performed these experiments with captive crows in a Brooklyn apartment; he told the reporter about the Brooklyn crows but implied that his work with them was preliminary to the work at the zoo. Asked to explain these discrepancies, Klein now says he and the reporter had a misunderstanding about the zoo…

Klein did get a professor at Binghamton to help him try it out twice in Ithaca, with assistance from a Binghamton graduate student, and it was not a success. Corvid experts who have since been interviewed have said that Kleinâ€™s machine is unlikely to work as intended.”

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booya radley on October 16th, 2009 at 10:39 am said:

RAINING IPHONES

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mike S on October 16th, 2009 at 1:19 pm said:

This was explained extensively at a TED talk which can be found online. He explains how he went from studying crows to eventually creating this machine. It includes footage on the machine as well.

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Nigel Burke on October 18th, 2009 at 2:39 am said:

Lurk in the bushes, wait ’till it’s full. Pick up te box and run away, dispensing peanuts to distract the crows.

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