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Step 1
- Begin by making the stand for the remote pet feeder. Laser cut all the pieces using our attached cut template [remote pet feeder laser cut]
- 2. Using acrylic glue, glue the two layers of the base together (¼ thickness clear acrylic). The maximum thickness that our laser cutter can cut is ¼”, so we doubled up the layers here to make a sturdier base.
- 3. Next, glue the base and two side pieces together.
- 4. Cut a ⅜” wood dowel to connect the two sides at the top, providing support for the feeder. The length of the wood dowel you cut should be 4 inch. After you cut the dowel to size, sand the two ends to make them clean and smooth looking.
- 5. Assemble the top shelf. Secure the shelf arms to the inside of the stand. Use nuts and bolts to do this.
- 6. Secure the servo to the servo holder. We used small nylon nuts and bolts.Then place the servo holder into the slots on the shelf arms.
- 7. Build the circuit. See the circuit diagram in the image above. Set up your cloudBit if you haven’t already. You can find information about how to do this here: littlebits.cc/cloudstart.
- 8. Stick the circuit to the stand. We used littleBits Adhesive Shoes to hold our circuit in place.
- 9. Make the fish food container. Drill a small hole in the side of the round tin. This is where the food will fall out when the servo turns. Glue or stick the tin to the servo arm, and then place the servo arm onto the servo (you may need to remove the arm that is already on there). Note: you may need to rotate the position of the servo arm so that food falls out how how you like.
- 10. Now you can feed your dear fish remotely! You can activate the feeder in a couple different ways. You can either use the littleBits button in Cloud Control to send a single pulse to the cloudBit, activating the servo. Or, you could use an IFTTT channel, like Date & Time to automate the feeding at times you set.
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