helloo! we are looking for sensors or a combination of components that can detect snails. Or if there is any cheap way that a camera can be programmed to detect snails.
please help us, we are really desperate abt this one lol
opinions and thoughts are greatly appreciated
tyia!!
If you have a laptop with a camera, that is all you need to train an AI image recognition model.
Plenty of info and even complete tutorials describing how to go about that can be found on line.
If you glue an RFID tag to them, you can easily detect them with an RFID reader. Google snail mail RFID for a fun project.
do you have any recommendations?
Unfortunately this is not possible because it’s for pest snail detection
No particular recommendation. An internet search will turn up lots of suggestions, so pick a tutorial that seems appropriate.
A microphone ?
The noise made when you stand on one seems to be fairly distinctive ..........
That test may not distinguish pest snails from ones that are good to eat, though.
How fast does the detector need to be?
Sorry. Couldn't resist.
I'd suggest two bare copper conductors on the ground and then checking resistance between them. Hope no leaves etc. drop on it. The added benefit is that the snails will turn back when they hit the first copper wire because they don't like it...even more effective than visually spotting them and then nuking them with the Giant Laser.
Btw, my sister struggled with snails/slugs a lot a year or two ago. I suppose she tried to catch them, but they ran away. Apparently, if you bury a glass up to the rim and fill the glass with beer, the snails will come in for a drink. It's kind of nasty in a couple of ways (and some would argue it's a waste of perfectly good beer), but it works surprisingly well.
Well, at least you would know that the stood one ones are not good to eat.
I've heard about the beer but I didn’t know that it was effective, On the other hand, the detector should be able to count the number of snails it detected 
Fortunately, we're talking snails, not sheep, so there's a good chance the detector will make it through the night without nodding off.
In all seriousness, I think it would help if you could describe the technical context a bit, since it makes all the difference. For instance, if this is an actual garden, then I'd side with @jremington in that machine vision is probably your best bet, and even that won't be perfect.
On the other hand, if we have some kind of artificial or (semi-)controlled environment, there are plenty of other possibilities. Which ones are suitable depends a lot on the specifics. From what directions will the snails come, and will they all travel in the same direction? Where do they need to be detected; is there one particular 'gate' they all go through? How wide/long is it? What kind of surface is this? How many are the snails anyway? Will there be rain or can we work under some kind of roof?
So maybe try narrowing the question down a bit (or even better: a lot). It'll get the creative juices flowing a little better.
We can save the beer for later.
Put regular soda pop,cola, in a LID or saucer, come back the next day and count the dead ones.
We are creating a small scale of a farm, I think we are leaning more on object detection, although we have no idea if that would be possible for snail.
Why detect and count them? Why not just kill them (with beer or whatever...) and then count them.
tag the shells..
~q
Only need a few mm to drown them. We used jar lids.
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