Kitty 3000 Treat Dispenser

If you have a cat, dog, or other hungry creature as a pet, you probably enjoy giving it treats. And since you’re reading the Hackster blog, you probably also find the idea of electronic auto-treating to be at least an interesting concept.

If you'd like to get started with your treat dispensing journey, check out MostElectronics' project in the video below. Much of the video deals with actually setting up an interface web server running on the Raspberry Pi, which requires modification of just two parameters in the dispenser’s code. The server generates a page with a colorful button for remote dispensing, and the interface behavior should be ripe for modification if you so choose.

The build uses an inexpensive 20BYJ stepper motor and breakout board to turn the treat compartments in the device’s cylinder. This action slides the tasty morsels into position, where they drop into the pet serving area. Making it even more versatile, multiple dispensing rings can be stacked on top of each other, which are offset in order to dispense additional layers of treats.

Print files for the dispenser can be found here.

Of course, one might argue that obtaining a Raspberry Pi these days is a bit challenging. On the other hand, since it’s doing little more than running a web server with some intermittent stepper motor signals, it would seem that nearly any Pi would do the job – as long as your pet doesn’t attempt to open and/or “rewire” it.