If you've had a puppy, you know it can be a challenging, very hands-on, endeavor to potty-train them! My puppy learned very quickly, but she would still often go slightly outside the indoor potty pad.

The solution I devised for this problem involved a Raspberry Pi, camera, machine learning model, and speaker. But first I had to train the machine learning model so I pointed a camera at the pad. Then, I labeled hundreds of videos recorded with that camera and used them to train a gesture classification machine learning model to detect when she was about to go.

Then I installed the model on the Raspberry Pi to detect the puppy's gestures and coordinates. Then, based on her position, a Bluetooth speaker would make cheering or scolding sounds. After that, a computer vision method would assess the puppy's accuracy. The feedback produced by the sounds over time helped improve accuracy thus training the puppy.

In this session, I will discuss techniques used, lessons learned, and many cute puppy videos!