Tricking my cat to exercise... with ENGINEERING!
youtu.be
My cat needed to lose some weight and exercise more for medical reasons, so i decided to use engineering and a bit of psychology to get him pumped up and exc...

tl;dr: my cat was getting lazy, and was developing health issues, so i wanted to make something to trick him into exercising more. I did this by attaching a treat dispenser to a cat wheel, and giving him treats when hes ran certain distances.

This was my entry for the printables smart pet gadget contest. https://www.printables.com/model/1278945-smart-cat-treat-dispenser-for-one-fast-cat-wheel

There were a few back-to-back all nighters right at the end in order to get this submitted in time (managed to submit 7 minutes before the deadline!) - so the code is all kind of lumped in one file. Ill clean the code up in the upcoming weeks, but the short bullet point list of features are:

  • Almost entirely 3D printed (other than a motor, 4 bearings, some sensors, and the nuts and bolts
  • Detects that the treat level is low before completely running out! no more sad cats that hear the food dispenser going off, only to be left with an empty belly!
  • Self hosted wifi configuration page (connect to the AP, go to 192.168.4.1, enter your wifi settings, and it will join your wifi network
  • Completely self hosted web UI / API - configure all your settings, vend treats remotely from other smart devices, and track your cats stats!
  • MQTT support - connect your treat dispenser to a platform like homeassistant to see graphs of your cats activity and be alerted to when the treat dispenser is almost out of treats.
  • simple electronics (no analog components other than resistors for some LED’s)
  • cool design features like internal wire channels so theres minimal exposed wiring (other than power, and a single connector to connect a hall effect sensor to the treat dispenser for detecting cat wheel rotation)
  • astrsk@fedia.io
    2·
    1 day ago

    Great project! Especially like the non-invasive pet tracking this affords.

    I feel like a smaller, electromechanical version of this could also work well for people who might not need the IoT integration, it could be a nice expansion product on its own with just relays and a power circuit / classical logic circuits.

    • motsu@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      3·
      1 day ago

      Yeah, or even something in the middle where you still use a cheap microcontroller and the hall effect sensor to track distance without any treats. You would have to find a way to get the cat running in the first place though.

      It seems like people have better luck getting the larger semi-domesticated savannah cats / similar to use the wheel than domestic house cats without training