Week 17

Applications and implications.

Final project

My final project is smart catfeeder. The device can despense food for your pets when you are far away from home. You can create custom profiles for the feeding time and get some statistics about your pets. The device has web interface application, so you can connect to the device anytime and anywhere.

who's done what beforehand?

There are similar commercial projects from different companies. There's one very similar to my project, it is called petnet

Required materials and components

Structure

Plywood 3mm width
Screws 3mm diameter 25mm length

Electronics

DC motor
Raspberrypi
N MOSFET
LEDS
Attiny44A
Resistors
Capacitors
20MHZ crystal
Phototransistor
FR1 copper sheet

Where to bring your components

Most of the components are available in the FAB inventory. All the electronics components can be brought from electronics supplier like Digikey. The plywood and the screws are widely available, i used our lab stock.

Cost

The total cost of the whole project is around 50$. The raspberry pi is the most expensive component in the project the remaining components is so much cheaper and i use just small quantity of them.

What parts and systems will be made?

The following parts will be made :

Structure of the device
Food despensing mechanism
Microcontroller circuit
Motor driver
Food sensor

Processes used to make the project

Laser cutting : Structure of the device, food container

3D printing : despensing mechanism, motor coupling

Electronics design, electronics produciton : Microcontroller circuit, motor driver, sensors

Embedded programming : Control circuit progaramming

Interfacing : Web interface for the device

Tasks to be completed

I've made a working prototype of the device but it needs to be refined and developed. The Web interface needs to be improved to be more user friendly and allow the user to create custom profiles, login. I still need to add some cable management and improve the whole design of the device. I need to add encoder on the despensing motor to gain more control over it.

What questions need to be answered?

Is the device helpul to the user ?

How easy it is for a normal user to use the device ?

What is the lifetime of the device ?

Should the device contain backup battery ?

How will it be evaluated?

The device will be evaluated on the simplicity of the design, is it fabricatable if anyone has the components and the tools, and its functionality.

Components to make rather than buy it

Everything in the project is fabricated except the raspberry pi which is too complex to make one in the lab.