Hey there! I hope you have some fun Thanksgiving plans that include lots of gorging yourself and relaxing. Today’s song is an old favorite of mine.
I’ve been looking for a project for my Tessel2 microcontroller for a few months now. It’s cool because it allows you to program hardware using Javascript, which is my favorite.
With the coming holidays, I’ll be traveling for a few days. Since I’m the proud father of a Betta fish named Rhaegar, I wanted to make sure he stayed alive and happy, so I decided to make him an automatic fish feeder.
First, I printed out the model from Thingiverse.
It’s a pretty simple idea: a tank that gravity-feeds food to an auger. The auger spins with the help of the attached continuous-rotation servo, which is controlled by the Tessel.
Then, I wrote the code. I wanted to make sure the fish was fed every twelve hours, and that I was alerted when he was fed. I used Twilio as my text messaging service, which was super easy.
index.js
[js]
var tessel = require(‘tessel’);
var servolib = require(‘servo-pca9685’);
var servo = servolib.use(tessel.port[‘A’]);
var twilio = require(‘twilio’);
var servo1 = 1; // We have a servo plugged in at position 1
var TWELVE_HOURS = 60 * 60 * 1000 * 12; /* ms */
servo.on(‘ready’, function () {
var client = new twilio.RestClient(‘AC60444a3748dee195b9250b351b25f0f6’, ‘API_SECRET_GOES_HERE’);
var timeSinceLastFeed = 0;
var dispenseFood = function(){
if(((new Date) – timeSinceLastFeed) > TWELVE_HOURS) {
//if(((new Date) – timeSinceLastFeed) > 1500) { //for testing at a faster pace
client.messages.create({
body: ‘Fish is about to be fed!’,
to: ‘MY_PHONE_NUMBER’, // Text this number
from: ‘+18455354398’ // From a valid Twilio number
}, function(err, message) {
});
servo.move(servo1, .7); //moves clockwise at full speed
setTimeout(function(){servo.move(servo1, 0.4)}, 75); //moves clockwise at slow speed
timeSinceLastFeed = new Date();
return true;
}
else {
console.log(‘It has been less than twelve hours since the last feeding; can\’t feed yet!’);
return false;
}
};
dispenseFood(); //run once on start
setInterval(dispenseFood, 60 * 60 * 1000); //check every hour, just in case
//setInterval(dispenseFood, 2000); for testing
});
[/js]
Then, I did lots of testing. I needed to make sure the amount of food was consistent in each feeding, which was exceedingly difficult. I decreased the time between feedings and tried both worms and pellets to see which was the easiest to produce consistent results, and ended up with a mixture of both.
Next, I pushed the code out to the Tessel to connect to our WiFi and run the program automatically on boot, which was as simple as
[code]
t2 push index.js
[/code]
Then, I secured it to the top of the fishtank with some tape (hey, it’s a prototype. Don’t judge me.)
We’re still in the testing phase, so hopefully I don’t over/underfeed him. Bettas are pretty hearty fish, though, so I’m not too worried.
Thanks for reading! I hope you’re having a fantastic day. See you next time!