Bird scarer clapper
6th September 2025
One of our Microcontroller Workshop members John S, was having some trouble with birds eating his fruit before he could harvest his bounty. John was determined that he could do something to discourage the birds until he was ready to pick.
An earlier project that used electrolysis to release a small amount of H2 gas to make a loud bang, while successful, was not the best solution in his backyard.
Version 2.0 uses 2 pieces of flat wood to come together rapidly and make a loud clapping sound.
With John’s ingenuity he produced an S-shaped cam in perspex that’s about 300mm diam to be rotated slowly by a stepper motor. As the stepper motor turns the cam, the board is lifted against the force of a strong spring recovered from a rat trap causing the top board to clap against the lower board with a loud clap after the top of the cam passes.
An Arduino program developed with some assistance from AI is to rotate the motor every 30 minutes or so.
Check out the video with John’s description and deliberations of making his project work.
https://files.melbpc.org.au/index.php/f/5540 (Sorry logged-in members only can view).
A further post has some discussion about the code logic and whether the stepper motor or its driver can deliver enough torque.’
Feel free to join us on our Saturday morning Microcontroller Workshop zoom call
https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZElcu6srTIjGdW5PjB-ct1DyUrIefmoYdLq
or in person at our clubrooms in Moorabbin to hear more about this and other projects our members are creating.
See the Event-Calendar for the next meeting details. Bring your project or ideas along and have some fun.
