Interactive Toy - Cat Fishin

My toy is intended as a game for cats and their owners. The biggest design challenge I recognized is actually getting a cat interested in anything I made as they are pretty temperamental and aloof at the best of times. Also I am allergic to cats, so my interaction with them has to be a little distant making playing tricky.

* Disclaimer: Let it be known that this cat (Lucy) just gave birth to kittens last weekend, so she was especially disinterested in me, therefore the fact that I got any response was a win in my opinion.

My solution was to create a toy/game that would allow someone who is allergic to play with a cat and interest the cat by playing on its instincts for chasing small things that scurry along the floor.

Subject: Cat

• No opposable thumbs
• Bad attitude
• Four legs
• Interacts with mouth a lot
• Near the ground
• Instinct for chasing things
• A known allergen

Affordances:

• Interaction is twofold:
• The human controls the "reel" 
• The cat interacts with/chases the "bait"
• The reel is designed with a simple ON/OFF knob that allows for easy interaction with the human
• The bait is a colorful little bag sure to catch a cats eye that moves in an interesting way to play on the hunting instincts of the cat.
• The bait is also soft cloth and nontoxic accounting for the possibility that the cat might get it in its mouth at some point. 
• The interaction is designed to maintain some distance to reduce possibility of allergy attack.

The Device:

The circuit is a dc motor controlled by a potentiometer

The Code:

Improvements:

• To improve upon this design I would like to be able to reel OUT as well as IN. The circuit and code would have to be changed to allow for a polarity change to get the dc motor to spin backwards.
• Also speed control with the potentiometer would be another possible improvement.