Cat-A-Mole
Description
PDFIntroduction
Introducing the Cat-A-Mole, our competition entry and passion projectfor the past 2 months. A fully functional “Whack-A-Mole” game for you and your cat(s). Complete with LEDs, noises and an interactive function. Dive into an advanced project, calibrate your printer for some tight fitting snap joints and hone your soldering skills.
We might have gone a bit overboard in the last two months in terms of complexity but it was alot of fun, trial and error. We produced quite a few prototypes, all in all about 600g of them. Not all the originally plannend features are ready yet, however the game itself is fully functional and adjustable with a bit of coding expertise, even without the menu.
The Code is commented and we've tried to give it some structure. Feel free to ask questions if something is unclear. We've also provided two testing scripts to check wether you've wired everything correctly. We recommend testing before closing all the shells.
With both light and sound attracting the cat to the game, some pavlovian response training should get your cat to quickly learn the game, maybe even play it against or with you. An integrated automatic feeder is a planned future upgrade. (After all there's an entire analog pin left for an expansion…)
[Our OLED-combo board had a faulty internal SDA connection and died on us at the end of the project. The Menu Code is in the files, we were as of yet unable to integrate and fully test it with the game code itself. We've ordered a new one but it will take a moment to get here. We will update the project once the menu is integrated. Feel free to tinker with it and give us some feedback. We will uodate this and plan on making a dedicated “Menu template” aswell as shells for that particular board in the future.]
Design
For the design we decided to keep it simple, yet modern. Inspired by the “Cupola” window of the International Space Station, we went for a futuristic and modular geometry. Inside are LEDs, Buzzers and Vibration sensors. Each Corner has both a Buzzer and LEDs for drawing the cat to it, aswell as a vibration sensor in the Cover to detect if the correct Corner is struck within the alotted time.
The Game decides on a target corner for the “Mole” to emerge, "runs" to it and gives the player / cat 4 seconds to hit the correct corner on the top before escaping to the next randomly selected corner. Rinse and Repeat.
Tap the green Corner to begin the game.
Demonstrations
Arduino
The arduino, the brain of the game, enables us to combine multiple different components into one system, enabling a more complex and engaging project.
Pinout:
Electronics
Rather than endangering you and your cat with lasers we opted for LEDs, active piezos and vibration sensors. These together build a working game of Whack-A-Mole.
List of Electronics & where we bought them:
Arduino UNO R3 USB - C! (Both original and clone is fine since we make a powerrail.)
WS2813 LED Strip,(Black PCB), 3M 144 IP67 (IP67 is important for its form factor!)
OLED + Encoder Combo (Great piece, also only needs a single 3.3V pin instead of 5 and 3.3 if you would use the parts without this PCB)
Piezoelectric Vibration Sensor x 5(this one is fully adjustable in terms of sensitivity, i recommend about 1.5 turns to the right. use the little turning tool provided in the files for that.)
https://de.aliexpress.com/item/1005005830138880.html?spm=a2g0o.order_list.order_list_main.94.416f5c5fIbgN5d&gatewayAdapt=glo2deu
Active Buzzer 5x (Must be Active to control Pitch of the tones. Use 3.3v ones, they aren't as loud, you can't adjust the volume at all.)
https://de.aliexpress.com/item/1005007592230799.html?spm=a2g0o.order_detail.order_detail_item.3.140e6368jOunTy&gatewayAdapt=glo2deu
Jumper Cables (2 Packs, one Female to Female and one Male to Female! Use 30 cm ones, we only had 40 cm and those were too long, makiong up for most of the messy cables you see in the pictures.
Permanent Proto Board (used for distributing power to all the sensors.
Battery Shield 18650 (Its USB-Output is 5V and the switch can toggle it on or off.)
Just solder male headers where shown. top rail is for 3.3V, bottom rail for 5v. Connect to the Arduinos 3.3v and 5v and respective GND pins.
18650 Battery (Purchase Locally form a good supplier or reuse from a powerbank)
No Link, source locally.
12-24 6x2 Neodym Magnets (There are 12 spaces for Magnets on both the lid and the base, we found 6 each to be sufficient.)
No Link, source locally. Classic Gridfinity size.
10-14 M3x4 Screws (Depending on wether you want to use 2 or 4 screws for the arduino and the battery holder, 2 seem enough, 4 are recommended for the OLED combo.)
[12-Bit LED-Rings x5 Currently not working! The ones we bought attempt to draw too much Power and refused to work with more than 2 Rings connected at once. Might update this if we find higher quality 12- Bit Rings.]
No Link.
PLA Filament of your choice. All files are in correct print orientation, #13 must be printed on its side as shown. With our settings [ 0.16mm / 2 Walls / 15% infill / Cross Hatch ((combined infill)), you can expect the following (We printed on a P1s)
Side note: We noticed that depending on the printer Orientation matters when printing dovetails! While most go smooth at 0.16 some are alot harder to push in. The “All plates” File contains all parts oriented the way they are supposed to fit togehter.
Assembly:
Use this as a guide to wiring. The numbers in the corners correspond to the the Pinout. Lets us know if you need any help with this, although we think the assembly is pretty easy and doesn't require any further explanation.
EDIT 28.4.25. added the missing print file for teh calibration tool of the vibration sensors.
Tags
Model origin
The author marked this model as their own original creation.