Feed-O-Pony

Simple horse feeder timer

Table of Contents

• Purpose
• Challenges
• Example
• Demo
• Team
• Tools
• FAQ

Purpose

The idea came from Mr. J's sister's problem with the task of feeding horses. Them ponies are far away on their field and the trip would take unreasonably long to be taken many times a day. Commercial products for the purpose are quite costly. This initiated our challenge to make one of our own.

NOTE: I got contacted by lovely German fellow who is trying to tackle a similar problem. If you have access to mains power, you might be more interested in his approach. https://github.com/EnsignCrasher/OpenHorseFeeder

Challenges

• The device should be cheap to make.
• The device should have the robustness of a horse.
• The interface should be easy to use, learn and understand.
• Reloading the hay should be effortless.
• Making it should be a happy process

Example

1. Horse-fanatic wants their mount to have "Well-fed status".
2. The Feed-O-Pony is installed and started.
3. Hay compartments are loaded and levers are lifted in place.
4. Horse-user selects the feeding interval by pressing the select button.
5. The sequence is started by pressing the start/stop button.
6. Feed-O-Pony releases a hay every set time for horses to feats on.
7. Program can be stopped by pressing start/stop button for 5 seconds.
8. After compartments are empty Feed-O-Pony stops.

Demo

• LEDs represent electromagnetic locks controlled by relays
• Electromagnetic locks are show in Blueprint as red rectangles

Team

• Eero Vakiparta - Initial programming work - Feed-O-Pony
• Mr. J - To be determined

Tools

Software

• Arduino - programming
• PyxelEdit - start animation

Parts list

Name	Price	Consumption
Arduino Nano	2.6$	15 - 18.5mA
I2C 128X32 SSD1306 OLED Display	1.1$	4uA - 19.7mA
4 Channel Relay Board	3$	70mA trigger
USB power bank	-

FAQ

• Why? -- For the greater good of horsies.