Somehow a fleet of rat taxis just makes sense. Two rescued rats have been trained to drive their own custom rovers.
The controls are pretty straightforward: middle pedal goes forward, left pedal turns the car left, right pedal turns it right. 🚘
It really didn’t take Kuzko and Kronk long to experiment with their new hot rods. At first we rewarded them for any interaction with the buttons. 🙌 Then, as they began to make associations with what each button did, we slowly increased the threshold of accuracy required before they got their treat. Eventually, they came to understand their task was to manoeuvre the car so that the portholes in the windshield aligned with wherever we held a delicious rice puff. 🧭
Kuzko and Kronk are featured in their Instagram page @emperorsofmischief. The humans based the cars on this University of Richmond study on rat cars. The study included open source plans for the rovers using Rasberry Pis.
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