I revisited a project I designed almost 3 years ago (Peek-A-Boo Mousie) which uses an elevator scissors mechanism to reveal a cat toy. To be honest, I didn’t get much engagement from the cats with it and I grew tired of operating the lever.
I really wanted to figure out a way to trigger it by remote control so I could surprise the cats at random times and maybe get some interaction.
I stumbled across these inexpensive ($7 for the remote and a small circuit board) devices on Amazon (Wireless RF Remote Control) but I still needed a mechanism to drive it with. Enter the “Scotch Yoke.”
Well, a lot of trial-and-error plus many hours of refactoring the original design, I finally built it this morning. It works great. Don’t know if I can convince the cats, but I enjoy seeing the mouse pop up with a press of a button!
Very cool! What a lot of work to design that (well, for me anyway, probably not for you!). Think of all the possibilities - Valentine’s Day, birthdays…
