Reached a max speed?

 

So, this week's progress has been to update the software. I have gotten the software to a point, as seen in the video above, where it appears like it is running as fast as the software can go. We need to sit down and debug the system more, because clock speed settings and common sense say that we should be running it faster than it currently is doing. It is also a problem if this is running as fast as it can, because from here it can only get slower as we add more processing in the background.

I am presently thinking about moving the serial clocking out to the foreground again, having it update once with the serial buffer, and then using a boolean to track whether or not this data has already been clocked out. This would take lower precedence than incoming serial data, but it should make clocking out faster. I am wondering if, in the future, a faster board may be better, but one step at a time.

Automatic Cat Feeder

It's 4am, and I'm sound asleep dreaming of robots when I'm startled awake by 10 lbs of hungry cat jumping on my face with a pleading "mew".  I get up, feed the cats, and unsuccessfully attempt to resume my slumber.  This scene repeated itself every day for only a couple weeks before I decided I needed an automatic cat feeder to maintain my sanity.

The feeder needed to only handle dry food, be able to ration food quantity so that the cats wouldn't get fat, and it needed to have a lot of storage so that the cats wouldn't starve while my wife and I were traveling.  Similar off-the-shelf feeders cost upwards of $50, and I like a challenge, so I set out to build one myself.

Build details and more pictures after the break.