Students Build Snack Delivery System for Elephants

An industrial engineering student is project procurement lead on a capstone project team that is creating a snack delivery system for elephants. Workers at the Reid Park Zoo were so pleased with last year’s two capstone projects supported by the Craig M. Berge Community Project Fund, they organized patron funding for more in the 2021-2022 academic year. 

For its capstone project, Team 22034 is building a machine that automatically shoots out treats into the elephant habitat at set times throughout the day. Zookeepers can also operate the machine remotely to dispense treats at will.

“Right now, the zookeepers walk along the edges and throw treats in the habitat, but this invention will hopefully be able to distribute treats to different areas of the habitat that the zookeepers can’t reach, helping to foster an environment where the elephants can search for food and pick it up themselves,” said mechanical engineering major and project leader Gabriella Vindiola. 

The team has overcome several challenges. Using weatherproof materials – to combat Tucson’s summer sun and the fact that the machine itself generates heat – took up a chunk of the $4,000 budget, so the students couldn’t afford to create a device with two dispensing mechanisms to shoot treats in multiple directions. Instead, they made a rotating system.

The students were enthusiastic about working on a local project for animals – not to mention being admitted to the elephant habitat.

“I’m an international student, and every summer when I was a little girl, we would come here and we went to the zoo,” said industrial engineering major and project procurement lead Alejandra Ruiz. “So, it was kind of something I knew about, and I was excited. Hopefully when I go to the zoo in the future, I’ll see the work we did.”