AR-Zoo, the future of zoos!

I am sure we have all been to a zoo before and have enjoyed the experience. Most people go to zoos for entertainment, spending time with family, connecting with nature, and education. Growing up, I have been to the Happy Hollow Zoo, the Oakland Zoo, and the San Diego Zoo several times. I was always excited to see the monkeys jump from branch to branch, see the lion roar, or the cheetah run in circles. In fact, I would run over and press my nose to the glass cage for a better view. But, little did I know, that this pacing was due to a mental illness.

Captive animals live a very harsh life at zoos. Zoo confinement causes elephants to develop painful arthritis because there is not enough room for them to walk and stretch their muscles. Tigers and lions have around 18,000 times less space in zoos than they would in the wild and polar bears have one million times less space. That’s like a human being spending their lifetime in a bathtub! Everything would be so cramped!

For these reasons, some animals even risk their lives in desperate attempts to free themselves. At the Dallas Zoo, a gorilla was shot to death, while trying to escape. There is also a recent case of shooting the gorilla named Harambe at Cincinnati Zoo.

One possible solution for zoo captivity is an Augmented Reality Zoo. These AR-Zoos will be a combination of real animals, animatronics and holograms. Domesticated and endangered species will be the real animals in their natural habitat. Other wild animals, that we only see from far away in a normal zoo, will be replaced with real looking, life size animatronics. And, videos of animals from the wild will be projected as 3D holograms. This will keep the benefits of zoos intact while addressing the disadvantages of zoo confinement.

I am Aarushi Wadhwa, and this is the solution my team and I are proposing. We are team AR-Zoo, a Lego robotics team that consists of five 7th graders from Moreland and Cupertino schools. Driven by our passion for STEM and solving real-world problems, we are proposing this futuristic idea that will help get animals back into the wild where they belong, and at the same time giving the same fascinating zoo experience to humans.

We participated in First Lego League (FLL) Robotics tournament, which is an international competition organized by “FIRST” (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) organization. This year's theme is Animal Allies, in which each team builds a robot to complete a certain set of missions, and to recommend a solution to make interactions between humans and animals better. We chose to address the problem of animal captivity, and our solution is AR-Zoo. In November, we took part in the qualifying tournament at NASA Ames Research Center and came 1st in the project area and in the top 5 in the robotics mission category. In January, we participated at the NorCal FLL Peninsula Champ regional robotics competition at Burlingame High School and received the “Coolest Project” and “Teamwork Award”. For the robotics mission category, we tied at 12th place.

We have shared this innovative solution with industry experts including Dr. Robert Visser (Applied Materials), Dr. Wendy Holforty (NASA), Dr. Mehmet Tek (Amazon), and animatronics experts at PETA, who all agree that an Augmented Reality Zoo is definitely the step forward.

In partnership with PETA, our team has recently showcased their life-size, charismatic, animatronics elephant, Ellie, at the West Valley Branch Library. Ellie interacted with the attendees about the tough lives of animals in confinement, and ways to help captive animals. Kids and parents, alike, were excited to see Ellie move and talk to them. This event was attended by approximately 75 people, making it a great success.

We have started an online petition about ending zoo captivity and instead use hi-tech solutions like an Augmented Reality Zoo. This is getting international endorsement, and has already received 650+ supporters, making it well on its way to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Animal Care department.

Online petition to end zoo captivity

We had the honor to receive the prestigious “Hero to Animals” Award from PETA, the world’s largest animal rights organization, for our innovative solution to stop animal captivity. Also, I had the opportunity to visit the PETA office and demonstrate our homemade hologram projector and have received very positive reviews.

Animals are not ours to eat, wear, experiment on, use for entertainment, or abuse in any way.

Next time, when I go to a zoo, and press my nose to the glass cage, I would like to see a robotics cheetah walking around, and in my heart I will be happy that the real one is running around freely in the wild.