DIY cat feeder powered by Ubuntu Linux, CD-ROM tray

It seems, from our very unofficial research, that cat owners tend to be geeks. And to prove our point, we bring you the geekiest cat owner in history. Lee Holmes, of Ontario, Canada, recently combined his Ubuntu Linux server to create a Rube Goldberg machine of a cat feeder. By running a script on his server, the CD-ROM tray pops open, a trap door opens, allowing cat food to flow down a cardboard chute into his cat's bowl. (Bah, just go watch it in action on YouTube, which is linked from his site.) As if that weren't geeky enough, he can use his i-mate JasJar to SSH to the server, allowing him to feed his cat from across the room, or across the world. Now all he needs is to figure out a way for the restocking process to be automated, and he could retire from his day job and sell these things to cat owners worldwide.

[Via MAKE:Blog]

[Top @ Aug 28th 2006 8:14AM]

Wonderful idea! Let's see how possible is it to create and market such a device.

[Max @ Aug 28th 2006 8:35AM]

Awesome Idea, it would be nice to contruct a proper model, with some plastic storage cases etc. Could market this very successfully.

Max

[David Muszynski @ Aug 28th 2006 8:57AM]

What he /actually/ needs to do is teach his cat to SSH into the machine and feed itself, that way he can be even lazier. I know that's a goal I aspire to. ;)

[Anonymous Coward @ Aug 28th 2006 9:03AM]

Wait, so Ubuntu can open and close a CD-ROM? No wonder it's all the rage!

[yuppicide @ Aug 28th 2006 9:38AM]

It doesn't look like he mounted the bowl though. If the cat moves the bowl the food goes all over the floor making a mess.

[J. Evans Turner @ Aug 28th 2006 10:19AM]

I had one CD-ROM (NEC, I believe) which gave me the options to open or close when right-clicking on the drive in Windows XP. I never install driver software for IDE devices, allowing Windows to do a plug-and-play installation. I believe that Windows provided those functions because it was a Mt Ranier compliant drive (?).

[cwatters @ Aug 28th 2006 11:14AM]

Nuts & Volts had a 7 day dry food system a couple of years back (2003). I think it used a PIC to open the solenoids. Didn't take using your junk PC to run it.

http://www.nutsvolts.com/toc_Pages/jun03toc.htm#

Teaching the cat to SSH in would be cool, but with so many pets being chipped these days it'd make sense to install an RFID reader, and if the cat gets within range after x time has passed, feed it again. That way you could be sure that *that* cat was getting fed.

It is amusing anyhow.

[apoc @ Aug 28th 2006 11:25AM]

"By running a script on his server, the CD-ROM tray pops open, a trap door opens"

wow, high-tech.

"I believe that Windows provided those functions because it was a Mt Ranier compliant drive (?)."

not really, the NEC software added those options to the drive context menu, as far as i remember clone cd once had this feature too, but it was removed for some reason.

anyway:

http://www.sharewareconnection.com/cd-tray-pal.htm

[James @ Aug 28th 2006 12:44PM]

Hrm... It's a cron job opening the cd tray. What a waste! But to be expected, it's applauded by some *nix geeks as innovative. This solution can be acheived without an OS for much less...

[steve @ Aug 28th 2006 1:16PM]

every popular scripting language has cd drive controls available as a package or module. It doesn't take 'the geekiest cat owner in the world' to download the SDL::Cdrom perl package and use it. Now maybe if he had built an external controller and feed dispenser and added a wireless interface......

[Vyenpakakapaka @ Aug 28th 2006 1:18PM]

Man, you guys all miss the point.

Yeah, it could be done other ways cheaper and more effeciently.

But who the hell cares? It gives this old computer another purpose in life before its retired to the back corner or trashcan, and hell, it -is- a darn cool idea (I wish I had thought of it, so i could submit it to Engadget, and be all cool =)

He's saved himself that 120 dollars to buy the kitty feeder mentioned in the comments, to spend on...a device to automatically refill the feeder, perhaps?

The point isn't that it's the most effecient, effective automatic feeder. The point is that this method kicks every other feeder in the behind. =P

I, for one, welcome our...aww, forget it, that line is overused. =P

[AyAn4m1 @ Aug 28th 2006 2:00PM]

Engadget seems to thing it's hard to automate script execution in Linux. It's actually pretty easy, what with that crazy cron thingy and all...

[Phat Kat @ Aug 28th 2006 3:14PM]

He needs to add a scale to the computer hooked via a serial connection. Then he could feed the cat when it loses enough weight

[Neil Bradley @ Aug 28th 2006 4:33PM]

And now he gets to burn $6-$10/mo in electricity to run the thing instead of a small embedded device. Not to mention that all of this could be accomplished with any OS at all (or any OS for that matter).

[cdawg @ Aug 28th 2006 6:53PM]

Neil,
If you'd read the article, you'd see he created it because he went on vacation for 2 weeks and didn't want to overburden his neighbor. Your post is moot.

[Tom @ Aug 29th 2006 12:36AM]

Next up, Linux-based litter box cleaner.

[jp @ Aug 29th 2006 8:22AM]

And yet his website is hosted on Windows.

[CJ @ Aug 29th 2006 12:28PM]

so what happens when the computer fails?

pet dies of starvation?

[jojo200517 @ Aug 29th 2006 3:00PM]

Hey CJ his computer isn't gonna crash and kill his cat from starvation because he's not running Windows he's running Linux.

[highfly22 @ Sep 2nd 2006 3:46AM]

It wastes a lot energy. But still a interesting thought.

[Cronick @ Oct 27th 2006 1:27PM]

Small Pet Feeder $119.00

http://www.smarthome.com/6182.html