{"id":437133,"date":"2023-02-17T11:30:08","date_gmt":"2023-02-17T10:30:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/innovationorigins.com\/?post_type=selected&p=437133"},"modified":"2023-02-17T11:30:08","modified_gmt":"2023-02-17T10:30:08","slug":"robot-teaches-finches-to-sing","status":"publish","type":"selected","link":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/en\/selected\/robot-teaches-finches-to-sing\/","title":{"rendered":"Young zebra finches learn to sing by mimicking a robot"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Young, real-life zebra finches can master their singing by listening to a robot, Leiden University announced in a press release<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A research team led by Institute of Biology Leiden researcher Katharina Riebel has developed a \u2018RoboFinch<\/a>\u2019, a robotic look-alike of an actual finch, to study the impact of robots in animal development. She and colleagues in the ‘Seeing voices’ research consortium have spent the past four years designing the robotic bird. Today, it is a success: young zebra finches listen keenly to it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Like children, young zebra finches start by babbling. They hear other birds singing, memorise this and start practising,\u2019 says Riebel. \u2018To investigate when and how birds learn, researchers have mostly played birdsong through loudspeakers. This was sometimes in combination with a screen, but didn\u2019t get any further than 2D. However, singing involves much more, such as beak and throat movements and posture. This might be why young birds learn less well from a loudspeaker than from another bird.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Working in 3D<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Riebel\u2019s research group therefore developed the RoboFinch, together with VU Amsterdam and Freie Universit\u00e4t Berlin. This started with a 3D scan and 3D print of an adult male. As birds see colours differently from humans, the paint that was used for the robots was adjusted to how zebra finches see colour. This made the robot seem lifelike to zebra finches.<\/p>\n\n\n

<\/a>
\"migrating<\/div><\/div>
This is how migrating birds find their nests back<\/div>
Data collected from more than 17,500 birds revealed that migrating warblers can return to a local nesting site from thousands of miles away.<\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n

Fast-moving beaks<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Using high-speed cameras, the research group filmed and then precisely measured the beak movements of zebra finches to make an exact copy. \u2018At the VU workplace, they said this would be a challenge. The beaks move so fast!\u2019 says Riebel. \u2018Yet they managed it in the end. An incredible achievement. And besides making the bird move properly, we have now perfectly synchronised several songs. That had to be done frame by frame, so at 120 frames per second, you can understand that it was an awful lot of work for the team.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Young birds interact with RoboFinch<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Fortunately, the RoboFinch was an immediate success with the birds. \u2018Zebra finches are often hesitant at first when they experience something new, but now they were immediately extremely curious,\u2019 says Judith Varkevisser, who conducted the experiments. ‘They come and sit next to the robotic bird on the perch and twitter at it. More importantly, the young birds sit still and study the RoboFinch when it starts moving and we play birdsong. They really seem to be listening to the robot! This proves we can use the RoboFinch in our studies of vocal learning and whether seeing the movements involved in singing are important for this.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This positive result means Riebel and her team can now put together the different components of birdsong like a building kit. \u2018Do we want only movement or audio, or to play everything together? And we will also try to make the RoboFinch interactive: then it can start singing as soon as the birds sit on a certain perch.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n

<\/a>
<\/div><\/div>
Black-painted wind turbine blades help prevent bird mortality<\/div>
Every year, approximately 50,000 birds die in the Netherlands because they fly into a wind turbine. This must and can be done differently. <\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n

Make your own robo-bird<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

With the publication<\/a>, Riebel\u2019s group is also providing all codes and instructions to make your own robot. \u2018So anyone, any research group, can give it a try. It was only possible for us to develop the RoboFinch because of the Human Frontiers grant. It was a high-risk project because we didn\u2019t know whether we would be able to build a robot the birds would accept. Now we are happy to share the blueprint with others and hope to discover even more about vocal learning. We are eager to see what else we can discover in the coming years!\u2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2583,"featured_media":514669,"template":"views\/single-selected.blade.php","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"advgb_blocks_editor_width":"","advgb_blocks_columns_visual_guide":""},"categories":[8553,76370],"tags":[10373,34961,4261,5876,73771,129562,129564],"location":[6763],"internal_archives":[],"class_list":["post-437133","selected","type-selected","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-digital","category-science","tag-ai","tag-animals","tag-research","tag-robot-en","tag-robot-2","tag-university-of-leiden-2","tag-zebra-finches","location-netherlands"],"blocksy_meta":[],"acf":[],"featured_img":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/RC9b8uxh-lf2XZqut-migrating-birds-strand.jpg","coauthors":[],"author_meta":{"author_link":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/author\/francesco-morelli\/","display_name":"Francesco Morelli"},"relative_dates":{"created":"Posted 3 years ago","modified":"Updated 3 years ago"},"absolute_dates":{"created":"Posted on February 17, 2023","modified":"Updated on February 17, 2023"},"absolute_dates_time":{"created":"Posted on February 17, 2023 11:30 am","modified":"Updated on February 17, 2023 11:30 am"},"featured_img_caption":"","tax_additional":{"category":{"linked":["Digital<\/a>","Science<\/a>"],"unlinked":["Digital<\/span>","Science<\/span>"],"slug":"category","name":"Categories"},"post_tag":{"linked":["AI<\/a>","animals<\/a>","research<\/a>","robot<\/a>","robot<\/a>","University of Leiden<\/a>","zebra finches<\/a>"],"unlinked":["AI<\/span>","animals<\/span>","research<\/span>","robot<\/span>","robot<\/span>","University of Leiden<\/span>","zebra finches<\/span>"],"slug":"post_tag","name":"Tags"},"language":{"linked":["EN<\/a>"],"unlinked":["EN<\/span>"],"slug":"language","name":"Tags"},"post_translations":{"linked":["pll_63ef5424c4234<\/a>"],"unlinked":["pll_63ef5424c4234<\/span>"],"slug":"post_translations","name":""},"location":{"linked":["Netherlands<\/a>"],"unlinked":["Netherlands<\/span>"],"slug":"location","name":"Locations"},"internal_archives":{"linked":[],"unlinked":[],"slug":"internal_archives","name":"Internal Archives"}},"series_order":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/selected\/437133","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/selected"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/selected"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2583"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/514669"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=437133"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=437133"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=437133"},{"taxonomy":"location","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/location?post=437133"},{"taxonomy":"internal_archives","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/internal_archives?post=437133"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}