I've been thinking about creating some more interesting interactive cat toys like this -- wiring the hardware and doing the programming are pretty easy, but where I'm stuck is building the actual cat toy bits that the electronics control! How have you approached this in your projects?
It depends on what you want to do. In my case, I have a blind cat and I needed a toy that she could hear. I 3d printed a simple ball, and I made a very small circuit with a bare ESP8266, a speaker, a small battery, and a vibration sensor. The sensor resets the ESP, which plays a short song on the speaker and then goes into deep sleep.
Well, for example, my (sighted) cats have a toy that spins a wand in a circle, but does so at a constant speed for a few minutes then turns off. I'd like to build one that moves in less predictable patterns, sporadically, over a longer period of time, without using much battery while not moving.
The hardware components aren't that hard to assemble, the programming is easy, but I'm at a loss with where to begin for building a simple housing where a motor can attach with a wand mounted to it. I'm sure it's very basic fabrication stuff, I just don't know where to begin.
Can you not use the existing toy and modulate its motor how you like it? That's my first option, and my second option is to design and 3D print something. The latter isn't that hard to learn either, you could make something decent in a few hours.
