{"id":5874,"date":"2012-12-10T15:25:02","date_gmt":"2012-12-10T15:25:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.eng.ufl.edu\/?p=5874"},"modified":"2025-06-11T12:31:26","modified_gmt":"2025-06-11T17:31:26","slug":"noisy-parrot-inspires-beak-driven-bird-buggy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eng.ufl.edu\/news\/engineering-education\/noisy-parrot-inspires-beak-driven-bird-buggy\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;Just shut up and let me drive!&#8221; UF engineering student&#8217;s robot creation is a viral sensation"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Electrical and Computer Engineering master student, Andrew Gray and his pet parrot Pepper made headlines everywhere with their beak-driven \u201cBird Buggy\u201d. Gray\u2019s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=rO2TR_8jXPc\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">YouTube video<\/a> demonstrating the buggy and Pepper\u2019s driving skills has gone viral with over 538,000 hits and been featured on NBC\u2019s Today Show and ABC\u2019s Good Morning America.<\/p>\n<p>The buggy has also been featured on NBC News, <a href=\"http:\/\/news.cnet.com\/8301-17938_105-57557702-1\/this-parrot-doesnt-fly-it-drives-a-buggy\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">CNET<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.wired.com\/gadgetlab\/2012\/12\/buggy-driving-parrot\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Wired<\/a> and Wired UK.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Gray created the robot for the Intelligent Machines Design Laboratory course \u00a0where students work all semester to create autonomous robots. The students are required to develop their own ideas and find the appropriate parts. <a href=\"https:\/\/sites.google.com\/site\/birdbuggy109\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Click for more information on Gray&#8217;s project.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Electrical and Computer Engineering master student, Andrew Gray and his pet parrot Pepper made headlines everywhere with their beak-driven \u201cBird Buggy\u201d. Gray\u2019s YouTube video demonstrating the buggy and Pepper\u2019s driving skills has gone viral with over 538,000 hits and been featured on NBC\u2019s Today Show and ABC\u2019s Good Morning America. The buggy has also been [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2592,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"single-templates\/single-sidebar-none.php","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"featured_post":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[25,57],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5874","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-engineering-education","category-stories"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>&quot;Just shut up and let me drive!&quot; UF engineering student&#039;s robot creation is a viral sensation - News from Herbert Wertheim College of Engineering<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.eng.ufl.edu\/news\/engineering-education\/noisy-parrot-inspires-beak-driven-bird-buggy\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"&quot;Just shut up and let me drive!&quot; UF engineering student&#039;s robot creation is a viral sensation - News from Herbert Wertheim College of Engineering\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Electrical and Computer Engineering master student, Andrew Gray and his pet parrot Pepper made headlines everywhere with their beak-driven \u201cBird Buggy\u201d. Gray\u2019s YouTube video demonstrating the buggy and Pepper\u2019s driving skills has gone viral with over 538,000 hits and been featured on NBC\u2019s Today Show and ABC\u2019s Good Morning America. 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