Schlagwort: Smart Pet Feeder

  • Build your own smart pet feeder with the Arduino Plug and Make Kit

    Build your own smart pet feeder with the Arduino Plug and Make Kit

    Reading Time: 3 minutes

    If you are a pet owner, you know how important it is to keep furry companions fed and happy – even when life gets busy! With the Arduino Plug and Make Kit, you can now build a customizable, smart pet feeder that dispenses food on schedule and can be controlled remotely. It’s the perfect blend of functionality and creativity, designed to simplify your life and delight your cat, dog, rabbit, hamster, or cute creature of choice.

    [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oNNsezRu14k?feature=oembed&w=500&h=281]

    Here’s everything you need to automate feeding your pet

    This intermediate project is packed with advanced features, made easy by the intuitive Plug and Make Kit. With its modular components, creating your own smart pet feeder is straightforward, fun, and easy to customize.

    Here’s what you’ll need:

    • Arduino Plug and Make Kit, which already includes UNO R4 WiFi, Modulino Distance, Modulino Buttons, Modulino Pixels, and Qwiic cables
    • A continuous servo motor (such as this one, for example)
    • Some jumper wires and screws for assembly
    • A 3D printer (to create the case either with the files we provide, or with your own designs!)

    Simply follow our step-by-step tutorial on Project Hub to put everything together, customize your code, and print the 3D encasings. 

    Once the setup is complete, you can remotely control the feeder via a ready-to-use Arduino Cloud dashboard, where you’ll set dispensing schedules, adjust portion sizes, and even customize LED lights to match your pet’s mood. 

    The Modulino Distance sensor ensures food comes out only when needed, while the Modulino Buzzer adds some audio feedback for a playful touch.

    Make it the cat’s meow!

    As you know, the Plug and Make Kit’s versatility allows for endless possibilities. Feel free to expand this pet feeder project with additional features! For example, you can add a motion-activated camera to capture your pet’s activities, or a real-time weight monitor to track how much food is consumed. You can even activate voice commands for an interactive feeding experience (maybe skip this one if you have a parrot!). 

    Now you have all the info you need to build your own smart pet feeder: time to grab your Arduino Plug and Make Kit and get started. The template we’ve created simplifies the process, letting you focus on the fun parts of building and experimenting. 

    Be sure to share your creations with us – upload them to Project Hub or email creators@arduino.cc to get in touch. We can’t wait to see how you make the small daily routine of feeding your pet smarter, and a lot more fun, with Arduino!

    The post Build your own smart pet feeder with the Arduino Plug and Make Kit appeared first on Arduino Blog.

    Website: LINK

  • This pet feeder differentiates between animals based on their weight

    This pet feeder differentiates between animals based on their weight

    Reading Time: 3 minutes

    A common problem among owners of multiple pets is how to feed them separately. If one animal needs special food, is on a diet, or likes to eat from another’s bowl, it becomes difficult to control each pet’s consumption. That is especially true when one pet doesn’t like to finish their bowl of food immediately and leaves it open to theft by another. To solve this problem and prevent one cat from stealing another cat’s special diabetic diet food, Tomas built a selective pet feeder.

    Like most of us would, Tomas first thought of using NFC tags on his cat’s collars to grant access to their food bowls. But NFC has a very limited range, which makes it hard to use in a situation like this. After considering other solutions, Tomas realized that one of his cats weighs quite a bit more than the other. If they were a similar weight then this wouldn’t work, but because the difference is substantial, he figured he could use a scale to grant access to the special diet food.

    This meant constructing a servo-actuated cover for the special food and a cat-friendly scale. Any Arduino-compatible board can control the operation. The scale is four load cells connected to the development board through an amplifier. A sheet of MDF on top of the load cells provides a large surface for the cat to sit on. If the detected weight corresponds to the diabetic cat, the development board activates the servo to open the 3D-printed door that covers the diet food. If the scale doesn’t detect any weight or if it detects the weight of the other cat, it keeps the door closed.

    This is an elegant and simple solution that should be useful for any pet owner that finds themselves in a similar situation. 

    Categories:Arduino

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    Website: LINK