Sensory woodland bird boxes
Nidderdale Children’s Resource Centre in Killinghall near Harrogate offers short breaks to children and young people with special needs. The facility has a sensory garden already, which Remap has helped with in the past, but the dedicated team who run the facility were looking to develop a wooded area on the site into a woodland path and fun activity area, and asked if we could produce some sound effects triggered by the kids as they passed by.
The solution
Harrogate and Ripon Group engineers Steve Brown and Ian Midgley installed cheap PIR activated MP3 players into five bird boxes. The integral AAA batteries are only good for a few hours of operation – so the players were modified to run from sealed lead-acid batteries which would also cope better with temperature variations outside. As the devices only draw an ultra low 0.1 mA in standby, this means the boxes can be left switched on for convenience. Larger replacement lids were made with weather strips, to keep the rain out completely. A high quality CTEK lead acid battery charger was supplied, so the boxes are taken down and charged up periodically. Solar power was considered unsuitable for the wooded area. An assortment of hoots, screeches, tweets, howls and other fun noises were added to the devices, and can easily be changed by the staff.
The boxes installed:
Construction photos:
The benefit
This outstanding facility was able to further enhance the service it offers.
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