Motion Activated Dog Feeder

Our project makes life easier by letting the dog feed itself when needed.

IntermediateShowcase (no instructions)8 hours1,185

Things used in this project

Hardware components

Particle Photon

Servos (Tower Pro MG996R)

PIR Motion Sensor (generic)

Solderless Breadboard Half Size

Bowl

Dog food

funnel

Software apps and online services

IFTTT Maker service

Particle Build Web IDE

Google Sheets

Story

If you own a dog, or have ever thought about owning one, have you ever had the issue of finding someone to feed it while you’re away at work or on vacation? This is no longer a problem with our motion activated dog feeder. Our product uses the communication between two particle photons. The first photon uses a PIR sensor that sends a signal to the second photon after it senses the motion of your dog coming up to eat. The second photon then activated the servo motor which rotates 90 degrees opening the end of the funnel. The dog food then falls out of the funnel and into the bowl and then the servo rotates back to its original point to cover up the hole. The program of the servo can be easily updated so that less or more food is dispensed.

Code

// subscribes the receiver Photon to the published events from the
// mesauring Photon. In the last arguement for the subscribe function, enter
// the device ID from the publishing Photon.
Servo myservo;  // create servo object to control a servo
                // a maximum of eight servo objects can be created

int pos = 0;    // variable to store the servo position
void setup() {
    


    myservo.attach(D0);   // attach the servo on the D0 pin to the servo object
    
    pinMode(D7, OUTPUT);  // set D7 as an output so we can flash the onboard LED


   
    Particle.subscribe("MotionIn", b,"2c002400184734348323536");
   
}
// converts Unix time data from subscribe functions to an integer value


void b(const char *event, const char *data) {
     
        {
            myservo.write(0);       // move servo to 25
            digitalWrite(D7, HIGH); // flash the LED
            delay(2000);             // wait 100 ms
            myservo.write(90);      // move servo to 180°
            digitalWrite(D7, LOW);  // turn off LED
            delay(1000);            // wait 1 second 
        }
        
    }

bool alertedin;

void alertin();


// PIR motion detection is running off interrupt functions, which once triggered
// will run either "alertout" or "alertin" functions. Pins D1 and D2 were
// selected as signal inputs from the PIR sensors.
void setup() {
    pinMode(D1, INPUT);

    attachInterrupt(D1, alertin, RISING);

    alertedin = false;

}

// publishes an event to Particle Console when either the outside or
// inside PIR sensor is triggered
void loop() {
 
    if (alertedin == true) {
          Particle.publish("MotionIn",String(Time.now()),21600,PUBLIC);
            alertedin = false;
    }
}

// sets booleans to true to tigger publish event in running loop


void alertin() {
    alertedin = true;
}