Imagining AI-driven shelters to help feed and house the stray animals of Istanbul — Assembly

A group of 17-year-old Turkish students share their journey to build a smart animal feeder.

Istanbul is home to more than 255,000 stray dogs and cats. There are government shelters and a few volunteer groups helping the animals, but most are underfunded or understaffed. Stray animals face harsh winter conditions and food scarcity while living under constant threat of being attacked by stronger animals or violent people.

During our walks around the city, we noticed that many of these stray animals are sick or wounded due to starvation or assaults. It’s devastating to see homeless and hungry animals. We knew we needed to raise awareness in our communities about this problem.

At Beşiktaş Rüştü Akın Vocational and Technical Anatolian High School, we attended a training on artificial intelligence (AI), held by the organisation Kodluyoruz and supported by the EMpower Foundation. This workshop taught us the capabilities of AI, including basic Python and image processing. We learned that since artificial intelligence is created with code, anyone can work in this field. It was then that we realised that we could use AI to help the stray animals of Istanbul.

Our premise is simple: shelters where animals can eat and sleep in peace and come and leave as they please. The shelters will be 50 x 75 x 70 centimetres for cats and 80 x 100 x 90 centimetres for dogs, which means we could house one animal per shelter at a time. We plan to place many shelters on the streets in various districts of Istanbul. Using image processing, the shelter doors will open when a cat or dog approaches. Inside the shelter there will be bowls of food that automatically refill when the amount of food drops to below a certain point thanks to weight sensors.

Providing animals with a continuous food source has its challenges. Refilling feeders costs money. We decided to address this issue by creating a gaming application where volunteers gain virtual points by buying food and refilling the tanks in real life. Through geotagging and QR coding, we can help volunteers locate and access shelters. With the points they gain from refilling the feeders, volunteers can receive virtual badges or real-life certificates authenticating their donation. Gamification enables collaboration and will mobilise the many motivated people in our home city.

We are currently in the process of building our prototype. At the moment, we cannot get together due to the pandemic, so we are doing what we can from home. Our first challenge is to find the ideal material for the shelter. In order for it to be resistant against tough weather conditions, we are planning to use insulation materials like oriented strand board (OSB) wood plates and insulated glass. We plan to use the software Arduino to set up the weight sensors and will employ a camera for image processing. We will also use Arduino IDE and Python OpenCV for the codes. After building our first prototype, we will test it at our school and make necessary adjustments.

We are constantly researching online for similar projects and applications from around the world. We have started to identify the required software, compile the scripts and lay out the milestones for our project. We are enrolling in online classes for AI, software development and electronics online and at our school to learn the skills we need to create the smart feeder. We have also benefited from the online learning platforms Udemy and BTK Academy for Python and Java trainings. Once we finish building the prototype, we plan to expand this project by working with private companies, state municipalities or animal rights groups.

Through our AI animal shelter, we hope to not only help the stray cats and dogs of Istanbul, but also show that both boys and girls can thrive in this field. People sometimes say coding is not for girls and it does not suit our “little fingers.” We are not intimidated by those words. We know that algorithms and coding have no gender.

Not all of us are allowed to have pets at home, but with this project, we will be able to provide a home to thousands of them.

Team Beşiktaş Rüştü

is a group of 17-year-old students creating an AI feeder for stray animals in Turkey. Selen Pala is a 17-year-old Turkish student who has been taking care of animals since she was a kid. Beyzanur Ürkmez is a 17-year-old Turkish student who is interested in artificial intelligence. İrem Ay is a 17-year-old Turkish student who has always loved animals. Başak Kazan is a 17-year-old Turkish student who believes it is vital for us to take care of all the living things. Şeyma Güzel is a 17-year-old Turkish student who is actually afraid of dogs — but who still cares for and loves them.