The Mouse Air project has been around in various stages since April of 2014. The goal of the project (conceived in a bar, the Fedora in Coeur d’Alene Idaho and named by Sarah, the most excellent bartender there. And some BlueMoon Beer.) was to be able to detect a cat walking by and fire a mouse. It worked! The first
(including the response from the Cat) to that article and project from a variety of sources, that I decided to do a redesign of MouseAir incorporating what I had learned from the project. I aggressively redesigned to eliminate unneeded hardware and drive down the cost and size. To the right is a picture of the 3D Printed box of MouseAir V2. The 3D Printing of the box was a big undertaking because I had to learn the whole technology. More on that learning process and what I found out later.
You can see the Mouse Launching System (servo motor pushing the mouse between the rapidly spinning DC motors) and the Mouse Loading System (a conveyor belt – again driven by a servo motor) that will drop the mice into the mouse launching box. The conveyor belt is the last thing that needs a little work. It needs a tensioning system that can be changed if the belt is a little longer or shorter than the standard 201mm. The final (hopefully) print came out this morning and I’ll be testing it this weekend. Here is a video of the Mouse project launching a mouse.
For more detail: 3D Printing MouseAir V2 – Part 1 Raspberry Pi Project
