Cockroaches – they’re the most irritable pests along-side mosquitos that I could think of.
Formidable Beasts
At my previous apartment in Bangalore, I spent countless hours reading and learning about them – their biology, their evolution, and much more! I don’t know why? I was curious to learn about my adversary in detail so as to defeat or deter them from making a nest in my kitchen.
I’m not even joking when I say that I used to set alarms on my phone after the lights were out – to go ‘get them’ armed with a flip-flop and anti-pest spray at my disposal.
Obsession and Electronics
I was motivated enough to leverage my nascent Arduino skills in electronics to at least track and monitor their movement when the lights were off.
Two popular ways as I discovered, were to use –
- Ultrasonic sensors, or
- PIR motion sensors
Project 1
The first experiment was to use a PIR motion sensor. Most of us might have seen this in an elevator or some walkway where they need to turn-on a light bulb automatically upon movement. This experiment required a moving object to be large enough to detect the motion.
It was most successful in identifying when my better-half went on to grab the ice-cream tub from the refrigerator at night; but not much else in terms of setting off alarms when these ninja-roaches swooped in. Overall – Fail.
Project 2
The second one used a much more accurate tech known as an ultrasonic sensor. It sort of works like a SONAR – it sends out an ultrasonic wave and detect it’s return to find the distance or motion. The catch was that the moving object must pass exactly in-between the monitored area for the sensor to pick up. Unlike a ‘wide-spread’ detector such as a PIR sensor, this is meant to be a precise tool.
It worked pretty good whenever a fat-boi Cockie stepped right across the identified sector. As an experiment, I would rate this a success. But obviously it is impractical in reality.
The bottom line
I wasn’t really trying to find a convenient fix for my pest problem using some hobbies project. Rather, I was using it as an opportunity to treat it as a real-world issue to sharpen my problem-solving skills with electronics and circuitry.
The actual root of the problem was eventually found to be the flats below mine who didn’t maintain better waste-disposal hygiene that is what provided for a good breeding ground. They used to put out their garbage cans in the balcony which encouraged all kinds of insects, including fruit flies, house flies, mosquitoes, etc.
Traditional means do work!
Ultimately, we had to get a deep chemical-based pest control done to get the situation under control. Thankfully, this worked really well and we didn’t see these nuclear-holocaust-survivors for another year or so.
The Present
Fast-forward to lock-down era – I’m in the market for a best value for money, robotic vacuum cleaner cum mop device. This is when a great idea struck me! How about something with a built-in feature to combat cockroaches? Wouldn’t that be a USP? A crowd-puller for sure.
Detect presence using LiDAR or appropriate means; accelerate and quash ’em, or better, contain them in the robo-vac’s holding bag for a more humane disposal elsewhere.
Summary
If anyone comes up with this ground-breaking, product enhancement – please don’t forget to forward me the royalties for the concept and idea!