[Noisebridge-discuss] Question: Hacking a Cat Toy

Paul Suliin psuliin at gmail.com
Fri Feb 17 18:02:06 UTC 2012


Hi all! I have a question and possible project that I'd like to get
some advice on.

I recently bought a Frolicat Dart robotic laser toy for my cat.

http://www.thinkgeek.com/homeoffice/pets/dcd0/

It's a pretty simple system: a small turntable with a laser mounted on
a pedestal. The turntable's rotates 360, back and forth, holds in
place briefly, etc. I'm guessing it's managed by some simple circuitry
and a microchip (I haven't yet taken it apart to see for sure).

I'm not entirely happy with the toy as it stands. Even the slowest
rotation speed is too fast for any non-Olympic cat to keep up with. It
seems as though it might be possible to adjust that somehow, slow it
down a bit and make it more usable. However I'm not a hardware person,
so I'm hoping some of the hardware hackers here can help me figure
this out. I can bring the toy by the space so anyone interested in
this can look it over, if desired.

Any suggestions?

-- 
Paul Suliin
Information Research and Technical Writing
psuliin at gmail.com
(510) 504-7884



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