User:MTomaselli/ENES-100/Pet Food Controller

Week 1 Narrative
The Pet Food Controller project kicked off in grand fashion. Each Richard Rickert, Carlos Velasquez Zubia, Heidi Schultz, and myself have high expectations in what can and needs to be done in order to market a "one of a kind" item. After countless hours of intense discussion and negotiation we have finalized the problem at hand. That is, to create an extremely unique and user-friendly way of feeding your pets by minimizing the demand on pet owners world-wide to constantly stay on top of their pets dietary habits. With our never before seen product we seek to completely revamp pet feeding as a whole. To accomplish our goal we plan to design a pet food dispenser (a so called "hopper") that automatically dispenses proportioned amounts of food specific to that individual pet. You ask how? The hopper will consist of a multiple tube storage chamber, ranging from one chamber to as many pets as you have, that will read an RFID Tag located on each pet's collar. After successfully reading the specific RFID Serial Number, the chamber will have a mechanically operated screw feeder that will release the owner-dictated proportioned amount of food. The problem then arises, but what about if my pet has a specific bowl that only he uses? We have addressed this problem to include as a part of our package a mechanically operated "turn-table" that will rotate according to which RFID was read, pouring the proper food in that individual pet's food bowl. It is now time to put in the man power and research in order to make out product a reality. We have assigned a job list per each group member, calling on each of our strengths.

Week 2 Narrative
Moving onward with the preliminary design of the Pet Food Controller, Carlos and I have been tasked with the design and implementation of the screw feeder along with the mechanical operation of proportioning out specific servings of food. Over the past week, and with my input, Carlos has designed the basic shape and dimensions for the screw feeder and housing which is very similar to the Arduino Controlled Pet Food Controller that you can see here.

My next task is in developing an intelligent Pet Food Dispenser by the use of RFID tags and a reader, which is the method behind our concept of dispensing multiple user-inputted proportions of food for multiple pets. As I have never developed an RFID device, it was going to take a little bit of research to fully understand what exactly I needed to do. One of the first websites I stumbled upon, RFID Door Lock Tutorial, was somewhat beneficial in that I was able to learn the circuitry and coding behind the mechanics but at the same time was not exactly what my project needed to perform. I then came across, Connecting RFID To An Arduino and was immediately engulfed in what it had to offer. It was on this site that I was able to completely understand how I was going to connect the RFID reader to my Arduino. Utilizing my background in computer coding, I have developed the Pseudocode that will eventually be converted into the C Programming Language that the Arduino speaks to. Within the next week Carlos and I will be 3D printing the screw feeder and housing, utilizing the MakerBot. Along with creating a tangible screw feeder, I have found a very useful and effective How To Solder Tutorial and will be beginning to solder together the necessary circuitry for the RFID reader.

Futaba Servo Model S3004 Specifications

Week 3 Narrative
At the beginning of this week I had my game-plan laid out but as we all know it never seems to go the way it's planned. I began my week in high hopes of 3D printing the rotary dispenser and it's housing, which still is yet to be completed. Nearing the tentative 3D printing date I continued to work out the coding bugs in order to leave enough time to for the food to fill as well enough time to pour it down the funnel. Utilizing the code and electrical wiring diagram from Hobby Tronics I was able to get my servo fully functional in no time. It was then when I realized my weekly game-plan was beginning to change. The Type E Futaba Servo Horns that I took from class were very flimsy and came with screws that were strictly for the Mini Servo. However, I would not let this hinder my progression. I knew that I have a plethora of set screw sizes in my toolbox so I began trying every screw in sight that was relatively close in size to the Servo screw hole. Once I found a perfect match I tried yet again to attach the plastic servo arms. As I was but two turns away from securing the arms in place, the plastic material gave way and split in half. This is when I took it upon myself to figure out what it was that I would need to create a strong and stable attachment for the servo. What I decided was that I needed to educate myself in SketchUp and make use of the MakerBot, which turned out to be much simpler than expected. After I spent a few minutes acquanting myself with the software I realized I had no specifications for the arm attachments to base my design from. Finding the Servo arm attachment may have been the most daunting task I have faced throughout this project. I was finally able to half-way find what I was looking. Using the Kintec Racing Website I was able to find my starting point, which was the "X style" arm attachment is 38mm across from end-to-end. This prompted the basis of my general design for a sturdy arm attachment.

Battery Powered USB Charger RFID Reader & Arduino Code (Reading Tag Serials) Reading Tags with Arduino - RFID Access Code

Michael Tomaselli (User:MTomaselli) (discuss • contribs) 00:30, 4 March 2014 (UTC)