Autonomous and Interactive Chicken Coop Livestream

[HenHangout]

This project started sometime in October when an online friend in Italy casually suggested I stream my chicken coop. I'm not sure whether or not they were serious but at the time I thought "Yeah... I should totally do that...". Fast forward a couple months and way too much time spent designing, installing, programming and implementing and the setup is finally complete and live

The final product: twitch.tv/HenHangout

All features:

• Four POE cameras
• Two of which are pan/tilt cameras that can be moved by X°:Y° or to a preset via twitch chat
• Focused camera can be changed via twitch chat
• Vote to change focused camera via twitch chat
• Two feed dispensers that can be called upon to dispense treats via twitch chat
• Stream includes updated temperature, sunset/sunrise times, current time, and days since streaming started (since Feb 1)
• IRC (internet chat relay) bot sits in chat and adds 'points' to viewers every minute to bypass twitch's 'channel points' feature which is only available to 'affiliates'
• These points are used to limit overuse of dispensers or moving cameras too much
• AI chatbot that can answer viewer questions based upon a given set of instructions in twitch chat
• AI moderator bot that removes messages that violate rules defined in a given set of instructions
• Net deployed over the entire free-range area to ensure chicken protection and that viewers don't witness harm to the chickens carried out by hawks
• Gutters installed on the chicken coop to route rainwater to a bin with water nipples installed ensuring constant fresh water
• ~1600 cubic inches of feed hoppers ensuring a weeks worth of food in my absence
• Raspberry Pi Pico W programmed to handle coop operations, with built in failsafes and will accept and run raw python code remotely
• I can send raw python code to the Pico and print the output via twitch chat
• TOPENS Gate opener installed on the run gate
• Coop run gate automatically opens 30 min prior to sunrise and closes 30 min post sunset via the Pico connected to (sort of hacked into) the TOPENS gate opener
• Nesting boxes open 4 hours prior to sunrise and close 1.5 hours prior to sunset
• Each nesting box is controlled via its own dedicated servo, allowing me to disable a specific nesting box in case a hen is brooding
• All stream, camera and chatbot operations are hosted on a dedicated home server that has failsafe operations, and commands the cameras to reboot and restarts the stream daily at 1am, allowing for 100% autonomous operation
• Pan/Tilt cameras revert to a designated focal point upon reset
• Camera X°:Y° movement is calibrated per camera based on time taken to move completely on the X/Y axis with complex image processing to determine whether or not the camera has stopped

Everything was designed to be a solid system that effectively runs itself with minimal intervention on my part

 

[Noraaaaa]

This is just the coolest thing! I love how it looks on twich!!!