Scenario

Smart Cat Feeder is a connected product designed specifically for cat owners who are not able to feed their cat everyday.

The product is consisted with 2 parts, a sensor to detect if the cat is in front of the food bowl and a sensor to tell the food dropper to stop giving food.

I have used a light sensor to detect where the cat is, when the light sensor is covered by the cat's shadow, the product will recognize the cat is here. Food dropper will start to drop food to the bowl below until the pressure sensor tells it to stop.

Every time the cat got fed, the owner will get an email from the Cloud.

Design Process

The design process of the product was a very interesting journey.

Material used:

 Two 10KΩ Resistors

 Two 1kΩ Resistors

 Lots of jumpers

 2 LED lights

 Light Sensor

 Pressure Sensor

 ifTTT API

I have spent some time to decide which sensor to use for the cat detector. Temperature sensor was my first choice since it seems to be reasonable to have a cat standing in front of the sensor is raise the temperature. However, after learning some case studies I have realize that cats are not going to stay there and also stepping on top of the sensor will not give the temperature sensor a clear signal. So instead of using the temperature sensor, I have chosen the light sensor.

It works very well, when cat’s shadow dropped on the sensor, it is a clear signal that cat is there.

Also, I have found an online API which is able to create a “First this than that” loop. I have connected Spark and Gmail, which allows me to get an email every time the core is activated.

Outcome and Next Step

I think the prototype works well and met most of my expectations. However, I do think there’s better and more accurate way to measure if the cat is hungry and want to get food or just walking pass by. To control the amount of food given is also another direction to think about.

After finishing this product, I’m thinking about using the pressure sensor to create something that can not only feed the cat automatically but also weight the cat to see if the cat is overweight, thus adjust the amount of food given to him.