CINCINNATI, Ohio — A partnership between the University of Cincinnati (UC) and the Cincinnati Zoo allowed students to create enrichment devices for different animals. 

What You Need To Know

  • UC students in an innovation class had the opportunity to create enrichment devices for different animals

  • A group of three students spent over a year designing and making an interactive feeder for giraffes

  • The students wanted to mimic behaviors used by giraffes in the wild, including finding their own food and working to get it

​​It’s not every day you get this up close and personal with a giraffe.

But for three UC students, it became part of their daily research.

“They eat a large part of the day and that’s kind of the main thing that drives their behavior," said Ben Merk, a graduated Mechanical Engineer student at UC. "So that was definitely something we tried to focus on with our enrichment devices.”

The students worked with zoo staff to come up with an enrichment device that would improve the quality life for these giraffes.

“Meeting the caretakers and the enrichment staff who were really there to help us along the way and lend a hand whenever we needed it," said Andie Ticknor, an industrial design major at UC.

After finding out how much time a day these animals spend eating, the students decided to make an interactive feeder.

“They spend their entire entire day eating," said Jack Buehler, an industrial design major at UC. "But at the zoo, with some of the enrichments, they just have the food right in front of them, they eat in 30 minutes. So if there was any way we could elongate or show how they do it in the wild, that would be a really positive thing for the giraffe, as well as the guests coming in and seeing that.”

And zookeepers say the device keeps the giraffe intrigued and on task.

“They spend more time feeding," said Terese Truesdale, the senior Africa keeper at the Cincinnati Zoo. "They don’t just get everything handed to them, make them work for it a little more.”

The feeder is on a timer, allowing the giraffes to only get into one quadrant at a time.

“We have it set right now for every five minutes," Truesdale said. "But normally, if we leave it overnight, we’ll set it for like every twenty minutes or every hour, and we can change the intervals.”

And after many trials and failed attempts, almost a year and a half after the class, the students can now see all their hard work paid off.

“To come back and check it out and really see the impact that the project made for the zoo and everyone that gets to come and check it out," Merk said.