LazerDazer: Arduino Laser Cat Toy

Cats just want to straight up do a murder on that little red laser dot. Hunting is great exercise for cats, and it's always amusing to watch them go on the attack! Sure you can just grab your laser pointer and go for it, but you always know where the laser is going to be. Let's inject a little chaos into the mix with a pan/tilt turret to make a laser that moves to random positions at random intervals!

Step 1: Choose Your Own Adventure

This should work with any hobby servo (PWM) driven pan/tilt turret. Here are two suggestions:

RobotGeek Pan and Tilt:This is a great choice if you'd like to add a camera or attach a fishing pole type cat toy. A more powerful turret means that you'll have an easier time using it for other things once the cat gets bored.

Mini Pan-Tilt: This is a good choice for low cost, but using 9G servos limits the weight of what you can add, and limits your upgrade capabilities.

Step 2: Assemble your Turret

If you're using the RobotGeek Pan/Tilt, assembly instruction can be found here.

If you're using the Mini Pan/Tilt, assembly instruction can be found here.

Attach the Laser, and let's wire it up!

Step 3: Wiring

Make sure to set the voltage to VIN for larger servos running 7v. You can keep it on 5V for 9G servos or run it VIN with a 6v power supply. Super simple wiring. On to the code!

Step 4: Programming

Grab the RoboTurret Sketches from GitHub and drop them in your Arduino Sketches folder.

Open up roboTurret3_lazerDaser and upload it to your board.

Grab your cat and power it up (power up the turret, not your cat. Your cat provides its own power. Do not attempt to power your cat)!

Step 5: You're done!

Now you can just sit back and watch your cat rush and attack the evil red dot!