Mr. G's Mind

C.A.A.T. =’s Computer Aided Animal Training.

Sometime ago, I decided that I wanted to appear on ‘The David Letterman show.’ My goal was to submit a pet video for evaluation so that I could be in the show’s segment titled “Stupid Pet Tricks.”

I know, who would do it? I just thought that it would be fun, and I always learn new things from my crazy ideas.

My concept was to have an aquarium fish train itself to run a maze. I called it “Project Little Star.” I would then go on the show with a white lab coat on and my trained fish. I can hear David asking me, “Who would spend so much time and effort to train a fish?” “Well, I would Mr. Letterman.” (Audience laughter.)

I decided on the parts that I needed and made a sketch of my set up. I would need:

A computer
A frame grabber and camera
Auto fish feeder
Light
Interface board
Aquarium
Fish
Monitors
An interactive program for fish training

Here is the sketch that I originally made and my actual set up below.

A lot of thought went into this crazy idea, that by the way never happened. The programming was beyond my capabilities, but in reality it could be done.

The camera would monitor the fish movements. Each time it got close to a maze hoop, a light would flash and the auto fish feeder would drop in some food. The amount of reward would be based on how good the movement was. The rewards would be varied so that the fish would not just keep making the same movement.

Eventually, the fish would train itself to run the entire maze.

So this was all for a stupid pet trick, but I believe that the concept could have some real world application. This idea could be applied to seals or dolphins to train themselves in rescue techniques, say for a downed plane in water or a sunken ship.

Sometimes the best laid plans of mice and men, or humans and fish just don’t work out!

Last year I built a bike box for my eBike – eBike Build, which resembles the back end of a Morris Minor Traveller ‘woody’ station wagon – Woody Bike Box.

However, when carrying items, especially wine bottles, I was worried that the bumpy ride might break the bottle. That would not make me happy when en route to a picnic lunch. What’s a picnic without wine?

So, I came up with an idea for some box padding. Of course, I do not sew, so I had to employ my favorite seamstress with the task.

My thought was to make a rectangular pillow that when folded, would cover the bottom and two ends of the box.

I had some leftover foam, which I cut to the desired size. The fabric was from a shirt that I purchased long ago, at a vintage clothing store in San Diego, CA.

The print, which has colorful, stylized sea lions on it, was produced in 1948 by Ganter & Mattern Co. That means this fabric is 74 years old (as of this post date). The shirt (what is left of it) was pretty threadbare in places, so we had to pick and choose the best pieces.

I decided that the sea lion print would only be on the ends, and the body would be black fabric.

Here you can see the remainder of the shirt, and one end of the form sewn.

In this picture, the pillow form is complete and stuffed with foam, and is laying on top of the bike box. I simply fold it in position to cover the box bottom and ends.