Pi-powered anti-cat garden sprinkler system #piday #raspberrypi @Raspberry_Pi
We’re big fans of cats here at Adafruit but we can totally understand where Joshua was coming from when he built this anti-cat sprinkler system; it would be super annoying to have a bunch of random cats using your garden as a toilet! Luckily, Josh was able to use his pi to humanely make sure these cats won’t ever want to visit his garden again! Via the register via hack a day.
It’s a tip of the hat today to Reg reader Joshua Thumim for putting the humble Raspberry Pi into the service of humanity with a simple but effective feline repellent system.
Joshua explained:
For the last few years, pretty much every time I (or my two small kids) wanted to use the garden I’d first have to remove 3-5 cat turds of varying stages of decomposition.
I probably don’t need to explain how disgusting that is, or how irritating to know that these cats belonged to my neighbours who had nice turd-free gardens thanks to being cat owners. It was a question of beat them or join them, and I was damned if i was going to join them.
I did try several alternatives first, but nothing really worked, and eventually my patience ran out. Think Michael Douglas in Falling Down.
Well, the Brit Michael Douglas hit the shed with the following kit:
Raspberry Pi (model B) + Pi Cam + PIR (rehoused in a box from Maplins, waterproofed with silicon glue)
PiFaceDigitalIO for the relay
24VAC solenoid water valve + AC/AC adaptor
Standard garden sprinkler connected to mains water via the solenoid
Some wire and some hosepipe
He explained: “The solenoid is switched via the PiFace relay in response to a PIR signal, controlled via about 40 lines of pretty amateurish Python, the main feature being use of the PiCam Python library which has a circular stream buffer feature for the video, allowing capture of pre-event footage.”
Each Friday is PiDay here at Adafruit! Be sure to check out our posts, tutorials and new Raspberry Pi related products. Adafruit has the largest and best selection of Raspberry Pi accessories and all the code & tutorials to get you up and running in no time!
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, TinyGO, or even use the Arduino IDE. Circuit Playground Express is the newest and best Circuit Playground board, with support for CircuitPython, MakeCode, 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 is every Wednesday at 7pm ET! To join, head over to YouTube and check out the show’s live chat – we’ll post the link there.
Electronics — How to make your own magnetic field probe!
Python for Microcontrollers — Python on Microcontrollers Newsletter: New Releases of MicroPython and CircuitPython and more! #Python #CircuitPython @micropython @ThePSF
Each Friday is PiDay here at Adafruit! Be sure to check out our posts, tutorials and new Raspberry Pi related products. Adafruit has the largest and best selection of Raspberry Pi accessories and all the code & tutorials to get you up and running in no time!