13: Hunter’s Feeder for cats and dogs

I have a Siberian cat. She is beautiful, but like most other cats, she is a pain sometimes. For example, she refuses to eat wet food, unless I hold the wet food in my hands. I also have to try many types of dry food to finally settle down one brand.

I use this auto feeder. It dispenses specific amount of food at a specific time. The timer is defective, always moves slower. Other than that, it works well. In terms of dispensing,  it basically drops the food in a bowl.

Unfortunately, my cat is not really into this feeding style. As I mentioned, she loves to eat when the food is in my hand. But I am not really a big fan of that. She will still eat from the bowl, but usually she will meow a while, see I am not going to feed her with my hand, and then finally she will go eat them. She seems to be more happy when she can eat in her favorite style.

There is, however, another way she loves to eat her food. It’s easier to show what it is than describing it:

Basically, I glide a dry food on the floor, and she would chase it and stop the food, then eat it. It may be difficult to see the food in the GIF.

My cat loves it.

I think deep inside, she still has the hunting instinct. Siberian cats are said to be dog-like and love chasing small animals.

I hate to let her go outside, because of her long fur, which attracts a lot of mud and leaves, very difficult to clean. I guess that is the main reason of me feeling guilty and letting her to eat from my hands so many times.

But you see, I have to stop doing that. Then I have to do something with the other option. Chasing food down reminds me of this:

This is a little machine that launches a ball for dogs to chase.

Yes, we need a similar machine to let cats or dogs to chase food.

This machine, I name it:

Hunter’s Feeder

I am going to learn how to build something like this, but here is a list of features I am thinking:

• shooting food in at least 2 different ranges, i.e. short distance and long distance.
• alarm mode: rings to prepare dispensing food so the pet can learn the time is ready.
• user setting: user can select when and the amount of food to launch.
• rotating shooting head: the launch angle can be 360 degree.
• visual detect: the machine will detect if there is any obstacle ahead before launching and automatically select a direction to launch.
• self-learning: it can learn how to train a pet to start chasing the food further or to a different direction, always keeps the pet interested. Say if a smart cat realizes the machine always just launch food to one direction, she just stays there and waits, instead of coming closer to the machine and then chasing. The machine needs to have algorithm to avoid this behavior.

OMG, I love this idea.

Now I really need to learn some mechanical engineering.