Bethany Krebs

Can't wait to hear about it! Also that picture is awesome :D

Hahaha does this mean you'll be making the trip? ;)

Former U of I bird lab member here. Loving the pictures and missing grassland species. Hope you hit your funding goal!

Hi Leslie, In theory once we have a Foobler design that works, we could vary the size for putting the mechanism into different sized enrichment balls for other animals. I don't think we'll be moving the current one between exhibits, but that's mostly because it is kind of difficult to load onto a golf cart to move around

P.S. The Foobler is now scheduled to go out on Thursdays ;)

Thank you, Joan! I'm tearing up reading your comment, this is the best reception we could've hoped going into this project. Thank you for sharing the journey with us!

Thanks Jeanne! He's definitely using his brain more, it's really great watching him work through stuff :)

Same kind of behavior data as before, Boone's behavior and location when we're watching him, trying to get out a couple times a week at different times to see what he's up to throughout the day. We've had a few technical difficulties with the electronics, so it may be a while longer before we can make comparisons between what I collected last year and recently but we're getting there!

He's so funny, you can totally see the wheels turning when you watch him!

This is great! I love how they follow the tractor that's taking the ball away at the end, clearly they wanted to keep playing. Thanks for sharing, Leslie! This made me smile.

I should've practiced with the camera before the big day! Turns out I'm not terribly quick on the draw with the tripod, getting shots of things moving around the exhibit was not my strong suit.

Great question! We get all devices approved by the zoo's curators before deploying them, so we present an idea and then modify it according to all potential concerns they have. For the Stanford class, the komodo mister, fence kangaroo feeder, and the bear's kibble launcher have the majority of their components outside of the animal's enclosures. For the kangaroo PVC ice feeders, the pipe pieces were cemented together to prevent things falling apart. With the giraffe feeder, we've enclosed the electronics in a water proof box and will hoist the majority of the feeder out of reach of the giraffes. We make sure there aren't any sharp edges, unsecured pieces, accessible moving parts, exposed electronics or wires that the animals can get into for all of the devices we design!