Servo and Food container
To distribute the food that will be mix with water and distribute to the fish tanks, we hijacked a food container obtained from a commercially available fish feeder and combined it with a Servo. To attached the food container on the servo we used magnets to anchor it. Magnets allow the used to easily remove the food container for fresh food refilling. Combine together the servo and the container with a slider opening are great options to adjust the desire amount of food. Indeed we can with the software adjust the numbers of servo rotation and tune the container opening. Each user can adjust these parameters to find out the right amount of food for there fish facility. We will describe later on how to calibrate the amount of food and during the distribution.
- Glued magnets on the food container and on the servo to create a magnetic anchor between the two parts. Use very strong glue.
- Be cautious about the magnet orientation, the food container opening must be oriented toward the top when placed on the servo.
- Fixed the servo on the robot body using Makerbeam headed bolt
- Done!
To mix the the food and the water we adapted a plastic 200 ml lab flask by drilling three hole on the top part and by adding a funnel at the top. The holes are to insert the tubes connected to the pump: one for the tube coming from the mixing pump, and two connected to the pumps delivering the food to the tanks. Hole were drilled using a Dremel 3000.
We used the small funnel from these kit. The funnel is adapted on the lab shaker flask by inserting the output inside the cap of the flask previously drilled accordingly.
To maintain the tube inside the funnel we placed a tube holder suction clips.
To prevent splashing and mitigate accidental leaks, the flask goes inside a water containment tank. We used a magnet anchor to maintain correctly the water container within the robot's frame. We glued two magnets on ZAF body and two magnets on the tank (be careful with the magnet's orientation!). Same glue used for the servo will work perfectly well.
