At UW, dodging geese has become something of a shared student experience. What might sound like a running joke to outsiders is, for many students, a daily reality, especially during nesting season. Now, a student-built tool called Waddleloo is turning that common frustration into something a little more manageable.
Created by Waterloo student Anirudh Dabas, Waddleloo is an interactive map designed to help students avoid geese hotspots across campus. What started as a personal encounter quickly turned into something much bigger.
“It honestly started pretty simply,” Dabas said. “I had my first real goose encounter at Waterloo and realized very quickly that the goose problem here is not exaggerated at all.”
While the situation initially felt humorous, Dabas began to notice how seriously it impacted students’ routines. “My friends had their own goose stories, people were avoiding certain paths and entrances, and during nesting season it genuinely changes how students get from place to place,” he explained.
That realization led him to create a tool that, in his view, should have already existed. “This felt like one of those very real Waterloo problems that everyone knows about, but nobody had really solved in a modern way,” he said. “Since the geese are protected, the answer is not getting rid of them, it is helping students navigate around them better.”
Waddleloo functions as a full-stack web application that combines mapping and artificial intelligence to identify and assess goose activity. The platform allows users to upload photos, which are then analyzed to determine risk levels.
“Users can upload a photo of geese, and that image goes through a computer vision pipeline,” Dabas said. “A YOLOv8 model detects and counts the geese in the frame, and then a second AI layer analyzes things like aggressive posture, nesting behaviour, territorial stance, and whether goslings are present.”
This information is translated into severity levels on the map, helping students make informed decisions about their routes. Dabas also emphasized the importance of reliability, noting that submissions are moderated before appearing publicly and that routing tools are designed to help users avoid high-risk areas.
Despite its niche concept, Waddleloo quickly gained traction. “The response has honestly been a lot bigger and faster than I expected,” he said. “Very early on, Waddleloo started getting hundreds of users and hundreds of thousands of views across platforms, which was surreal.”
Part of its success lies in how instantly relatable it is to Waterloo students. “It sounds funny until you have actually had to change your route because a goose is hissing at you,” Dabas said. “A lot of the feedback has been some version of, ‘this is hilarious, but also I actually need this.’”
The project’s reach has already extended beyond Waterloo. Dabas shared that students from other campuses quickly connected with the idea, leading to early expansion efforts. “Waddleloo has already expanded to Laurier, and I’d love to keep extending it to other campuses over time,” he said.
Looking ahead, he sees opportunities to further develop the platform’s capabilities. “Better route intelligence, stronger reporting systems, broader campus support, and more data over time could all make it even more useful,” he noted.
For Dabas, however, the project is about more than just technology. It reflects a deeper connection to campus life and student experience. “As a first-year student, you are still figuring out a place… Waddleloo came out of one of those very specific campus experiences that sounds funny from the outside, but is genuinely part of how students live here,” he said.
He also emphasized the importance of creating something that balances functionality with personality. “It is easy for a project like this to come off as a joke, so I wanted to make sure the actual product held up,” he explained.
Ultimately, the most rewarding part has been seeing how other students respond. “There is something really special about making something that people laugh at, relate to, and actually use,” Dabas said. “When something manages to be useful and make people feel seen at the same time, that is probably the most rewarding kind of project I could ask for.”
