The focus for this week was to put together the system in the temporary housing. The housing manufactured is a very simplified version of our CAD model, this model is solely to demonstrate the location of each component and the overall functionality. The straps on the front will hold the food container in place, it’s a representation of the plastic straps on our model that hold the container and make it possible to remove the food container from the system. The syringe is also placed in this model at the angle it will be placed on our final model, the syringe is the cartridge representation. There is only one cartridge attached in this simplified model, as mentioned in previous blogs the total number of cartridges to be attached are 4. That can be seen on our CAD model. The food dispensing mechanism is currently working on the attachment between the motor shaft and the star ball that rotates inside the container. The alignment between these two components insures that the container is in the appropriate position to avoid any malfunctions. The screen on the model is functioning, the button also performs as intended. When the system is turned ON it display a greeting, after a button is selected it will display the type of dog it is intending to feed varying form a 12-lb. small to a 60-lb. large dog. When system goes through the motor code to dispense the food and onto the pump 2nd to dispense the supplement.

Sandy Moreno, Integrated Pet Feeder for Health and Wellness