A lifelike robot designed to mimic one of the country's rarest birds — the South Island kōkako — is being deployed in a bid to lure the elusive bird out of hiding.
Declared extinct in 2008, the Department of Conservation retracted confirmation of its demise due to insufficient data.
The animatronic bird, nicknamed AK, was built by five Canterbury University electrical engineering students.
It uses six servo motors for realistic movement and is programmed to replicate kōkako calls.
Former electrical engineering professor Phil Bones said: "To make the bird move in quite a realistic way he does little jerky movements, not continuous movements."
AK just returned from a two-week trial out in the elements in torrential rain and survived intact.
Student Eve Hudson said the team was thrilled.
"He's looking pretty good since he was out there for about two weeks in absolute torrential rain."
The project was quite ambitious, student Sam Taylor admitted.
"We had no idea whether we could get this to work when we first started on it and just seeing this evolve through bits of machinery and 3D printing throughout the year into this actual bird is phenomenal," he said.
The team has all become quite fond of the robot, Bones said.
"He's been my companion, my chair is there and he's right there, so we've been talking a lot. He does express some loneliness."
The South Island Kōkako Trust, which offered a $10,000 reward for video evidence in 2017, hopes the robot will attract any surviving kōkako.
Spokesperson Inger Perkins said: "If there’s one there, it will come over and investigate. It was like, well, that’s singing like me, it looks like me, moving like me."
Plans were underway to build six more robots if funding allows. The trust had logged 500 possible encounters since 2017.
Bones joked he promised a kōkako tattoo if the bird is rediscovered: "I might have to grit my teeth and do that."
For the students, the chance their creation could help find the kōkako would be "a dream come true".
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