Bird Bot

Once upon a time, there was a bird-owning engineer with a problem: his African Grey Parrot would, like most of their species, become very upset when away from what they considered the center of action in an area, and would start hooting and screeching for attention. His first solution was a noise-detecting squirt gun. At first this worked, and the spray of water would interrupt the screaming. Then the bird figured out how it worked and started intentionally triggering it for a quick bathtime, which parrots love. (African Greys have the intellectual capacity of a 3 year old on average, but have some skills that human children don't figure out until they're 12.)

It's not safe to let a parrot walk around unattended, one because they are immensely small and light and they will die if you step on them. (A medium sized parrot such as an African Grey weighs about one pound. The heaviest known parrot weighs 8 pounds.) Another reason is that they can chew on things on the floor, or even the floor itself, causing immense property damage. So his next idea was one that allowed the bird to travel around safely: a small motorized bird-controlled cart. The bird stands on a small perch, and pushes around a metal bar to control the cart. This way the bird could follow the humans of the house around without ever being underfoot or in the path of tempting electrical chords, rugs, or floor tiles.

The joystick component appeared to be one of the surprisingly larger engineering challenges. A parrot's beak evolved to crush nuts, is about a strong as a human with a pair of pliers, and they immensely enjoy ripping things to shreds with it. The top part can punch through wood like an awl, and the larger parrots can even destroy a steel cage. The joystick had to be designed in such a way to resist puncture, pressure, and had to endure being pulled on, all of which the bird almost assuredly tried to do.

The most challenging thing though, is that our enterprising engineer did not want to have to put this cart away every day when it's time for the bird to go to bed. The cart is designed with a computerized system that can find its way back to the charger, and slowly scoot the cart into position where it gets plugged in and charged back up for another day of bird-moving. This does so with computer-vision, which is remarkably difficult to do successfully. Also, it begins to do this the moment the parrot leaves the cart.

If I were this engineer, I would look into having this cart mass-produced.

Self-Cleaning Bird Cage

You notice how when people have bird cages, the cages are almost perpetually dirty?
See, most birds live in trees, and live with the assumption that anything dropped is taken away by gravity, to the forest floor, which they don't care about. So an accumulation of unwanted objects beneath the area that a bird lives is inevitable. The cage floor becomes covered in seed hulls, detatched toys, and poop. The bird's owner must clean this accumulation regularly, lest it become a breeding ground for bacteria.
But, with a little engineering, the balance of nature can be restored. This cage would have a slanted, teflon coated under-section, which the bird cannot reach due to a grill. Dropped seed hulls would fall through the grill, and slide down the under-section. Then, if we connect this to a vent that goes to a waste receptacle, the cage will now clean itself. All dropped waste slides away for easy collection. (Just take away the can on occasion.)

Pet Treat Dispensor

I, like many other people, have pets. I want to train them to do things, and the best way to do this is to offer them a treat when they do something that pleases me. Unfortunately, you have to offer the treat immediately, or the pet will get confused as to what it's for. This has meant for me carrying around a bag of treats. I imagine a better option.
It would be a small, gumball-machine-ish device, which would connect via radio to a small clicker. I would set down the gumball-machine, and keep the clicker in pocket or hand. When the pet pleases me, I click the device. This both makes a clicking sound and activates the machine to drop a treat for the pet to consume. The clicking also makes the pet associate the click with "You did a good job -- you'll be getting a treat very soon."
Maintenance wise, I will need a way to refill the treat-supply, and it is important to avoid jamming the device. I'm sure gumball and toy vendors will have a legion of advice on that topic. Also, low battery (or other power sources) warnings so that I know to change them. I want the click to be loud enough so that my pet can obviously hear it, but not so loud that it bothers people around me.
Training would go faster if there was also a "no, that was bad" indicator, but I don't know any universal enough. I expect this to work with dogs, cats, parrots, ferrets, and lizards, provided that the animal can hear, is capable of living outside a cage (the way that a dog can and a chimpanzee cannot), and is motivated by food. (I don't anticipate this would work well for, say, a panda.)

Automatic Dog Toy

My parents own a fetching-addicted dog, and are real tired of throwing balls. I'll bet you they'd love to have this.