Automatic Laser Cat Toy

Final Product!

Inspiration

Everyone loves playing with their cat, but sometimes we're just too busy. This tool is designed to assist with cat entertainment automatically via lasers.

What it does

The machine is built to entertain cats with a laser pointer. The laser pointer is built upon a pan and tilt kit that is actuated with 2 servos powered by a Raspberry Pi 3B. All code is in Python. Machine can be operated via a button or via Google Home as well as Gmail. By sending an email containing "start" or "stop" in the subject line, the machine can be turned off and on.

How we built it

Machine was built with 2 servos, the pan and tilt kit, a laser pointer and the RasPi. Assorted wires and transistors were used as well. Python wrapper detects incoming emails with the keyword in the subject line, this toggles the machine.

Challenges we ran into

The original plan was to make the laser pointer powered by the Raspberry Pi, however due to time constraints this was not a feasible addition to the project. Ultimately, the laser remained battery powered. The code had to be modified drastically to function properly. The code was modified by me to function correctly with my servos and my ultimate final vison for the project as a whole.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Finding and rooting out bugs in the code was a big breakthrough and took a lot of time. I was happy to finally nail it down exactly how I wanted. Putting together the pan and tilt kit was also a blast.