Montana State University 2022-23 Capstone Wrap-Up

Congratulations to the seniors who have successfully completed their capstone projects! YERC is honored to have worked alongside you this year, and we are excited to see where the future takes you all.

DIABLO

The Drone In A Box for Large-scale Optimization team, thanks to seniors Cody Coffin, Thomas Neuman, Val Tretter, Aiden Doherty, Samuel Hawkins, Kai Gayle, Kolten Harris, and Isaac Wahle, put together an impressive capstone project building upon a capstone from last year. Remote autonomous deployment, surveillance, re-docking and recharging were the main objectives for this year’s group. The Sky Box was designed to be integrated with RESOLVE’s revolutionary TrailGuard 3 camera. The group’s final prototype is a weatherized, ruggedized box that has a weather station attached. If conditions are safe for a launch, the drone will slide out on a platform in response to a camera-trap alert. The drone will fly towards the camera trap that was alerted, and optionally hand over control to a human operator to administer any necessary deterrents or actions. This is similar to RESOLVE’s successful capture of tiger and elephant poachers as well as trespassers. The box then reopens and accepts the drone to be housed and charged until it is next needed. 

Large Mammal Tagging

The Large Mammal Tagging group took a prototype from last year’s capstone group, and increased its efficiency and accuracy. They picked up where last year’s group left off in developing an automated system to mark animals with long-lasting paint marking, with the ultimate intent being to use re-capture methods to determine population size, movements, and survival. Seniors Nolan Johnston, Diego Armstrong, Ian St. Michael, and James McGarvin  decrease the latency time between target acquisition and marking, reduce the volume and mass of the entire system by over 50%, and implement a sleep mode to extend battery life. The device is integrated with RESOLVE’s TrailGuard 3 camera, and employs its revolutionary AI capabilities to ensure only the intended target is marked. We especially thank Steve Gulick and Eric Dinerstein from RESOLVE.

FishNet

This team, made up of seniors DJ McCleish, Nic Hillard, James Wurst had a remarkable semester. Their impressive efforts this year produced a functional prototype that will change the future of fish ecology and conservation. Read more about their final product here.