Good Day all! I am new to forums and have been tinkering for years. Just got my first ardunio Uno and want to try my luck at a project.
I have 2 cats, one is about 2 pounds heavier than the other and likes to steal the foound of the smaller one.
My idea is to create a food dish with a mechanism to block (cover that moves with a servo?) the heavier cat from eating past a certain amount. i was thinking weight would be the best identifier. i could place the high capacity food bowl on a platform large enough for a cat, elevated so the cat would be required to sit on the platform. i was thinking a couple pieces of plywood or MDF with a load cell between.
On the code side, I could get creative, make it so the system performs a zero or tare at regular intervals if idle. then once active, i.e. a cat jumps on the platform and the load cell registers a difference, measure the current weight. Since prior to the cat jumping up, it should have registered 0, the cat could be identified by weight. once the cat leaves, and prior to the next tare, a difference can be taken of the weight before and after the cat to determine the quantity of food eaten that day. this value could be stored and added up each time the cat eats up to a configured maximum value where the heavier cat would now be blocked from eating by the servo mechanism
I am looking for advice on how to implement this. I have the arduino, a bunch of LEDs and even a small LCD that could be used to display the gathered information. i just don't have a way to measure the weight. On top of advice for implementation, could you also point me in the direction of a device that could be used to measure weight, ideally down to a tenth of a pound (or grams, I'm not married to imperial measurements) that would be accurate in the range of 8 - 14 lbs? i am not sure what exactly is compatible with an arduino or what would be the simplest option for a newb like myself