Auto Animal Trap (David Feng - Motion Box)

• 

  Finished Product

Inspiration

My neighbor often stays up at night to manually trigger his animal traps for the rats and squirrel that raid his garden. He notes how this is the only solution to protect his vegetables and even their surrounding wooden supports. I wish to help him sleep earlier and soundly by having machines do the work for him.

What it does

The automatic trap is an addon to the existing Havahart Animal Trap that triggers the closing sequence when an animal crosses the ultrasonic sensor pointed at the bait. Instead of a paddle, the motor pulls on the release, dropping the doors almost instantly.

How I built it

Powered by an Arduino and a 9V battery, the device has an ultrasonic sensor that reads the distance data, which immediately triggers the motor if it changes under a certain threshold. The motor hooked to a motor driver spins, pulling on a string, across a pulley/wheel on a 3D printed mount. Everything is mounted with duct tape on top of the trap, with the string hot glued to the catch.

Challenges we ran into

The ultrasonic sensor would sometimes read extraneous or erroneous values that would trigger the motor into releasing early. Also the placement of some mounts would prevent the trap from closing properly.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

I did this in 36 hours. It fricking works.

What I learned

I learned what several parts like the motor driver, ultrasonic sensor, and buzzer do and how they are wired and coded on the Arduino board.

What's next for Auto Animal Trap (David Feng - Motion Box)

I return the trap to my neighbor and mess around with more of the parts in the motion box.

Built With

• arduino