Tug-Of-War
Electronic Dog Toy
The goal of this project was to see if I could devise a way to outlast my dog in a game of Tug-Of-War. No matter how long you played with him he would always seem to want another game. The trick would be finding a way to make him think he was pulling against something "alive" so that he would continue the game long enough to both give him a good dose of exercise while temporarily saving me from it.
The final design ended up being very similar to a fishing reel, where an object can be pulled in or released upon command. It consists of a 3d printed housing, stepper motor with attached "reel", motor control board and Bluetooth connection board. The device is controlled by a phone app where the dog toy can be pulled in or released in shorter or longer bursts. Being able to quickly tug back and forth allows the user to recreate the style of play that occurs when a human is tugging on the toy. Another interesting feature of the toy is the ability to toggle the motor on and off so the dog can pull the line out and "win" for periods during the match.
The main technical challenges of this project involved finding a motor strong enough to resist the dog, supplying enough current to support the motor, and ensuring the assembly overall was strong enough to not buckle. My initial prototypes continuously grew in size after each previous one was either beaten or destroyed during the match. The funny thing was seeing my dog gloat after he had beaten each successive revision. Although any larger size dog would easily overpower the device, for small dogs I would say the device worked at creating an engaging method of play.