Ben Miller hacks a commercial pet feeder so it can be controlled remotely:
For our first project we decided to create something that would allowed my dad to feed his dogs remotely if he and my mom were out gallivanting (technical term) about. Don’t worry, the dog door allows for the post-processing to occur safely.
She had done a lot of the research already like finding a powered dog feeder and determining how to hack it to work on demand. Apparently, if you push the Volume and Set buttons at the same time it triggers the feed cycle. She shows how to connect to the board and use an arduino to logically push these buttons. We loved it, but wanted to add a few features
Stop breadboarding and soldering – start making immediately! Adafruit’s Circuit Playground is jam-packed with LEDs, sensors, buttons, alligator clip pads and more. Build projects with Circuit Playground in a few minutes with the drag-and-drop MakeCode programming site, learn computer science using the CS Discoveries class on code.org, jump into CircuitPython to learn Python and hardware together, or even use Arduino IDE. Circuit Playground Express is the newest and best Circuit Playground board, with support for MakeCode, CircuitPython, and Arduino. It has a powerful processor, 10 NeoPixels, mini speaker, InfraRed receive and transmit, two buttons, a switch, 14 alligator clip pads, and lots of sensors: capacitive touch, IR proximity, temperature, light, motion and sound. A whole wide world of electronics and coding is waiting for you, and it fits in the palm of your hand.
Have an amazing project to share? The Electronics Show and Tell with Google Hangouts On-Air is every Wednesday at 7:30pm ET! To join, head over to YouTube and check out the show’s live chat – we’ll post the link there.
