Water Portion

During the final operation of the water system, we found that it had functionally achieved the goal we set out for, which was a constant supply of water. The force sensor is constantly reading the value of the pressure exerted on it and when the weight drops low enough (based on a preset threshold) the solenoid valve is opened for 0.5 s and dispenses water from our reserve, through our rubber tubing and into the water bowl. If after a water dispense the weight of the water has not exceeded the threshold to stop dispensing the system will wait 5 seconds to prevent any sort of frantic opening and closing of the solenoid valve if the value is hovering around the threshold, then it will dispense again and repeat the process until the water threshold has been exceeded.

Due to the desire to always have a constant supply of water for the pet to consume, precision of the water dispensed was not required. We simply needed to ensure the valve would not open long enough to overflow the bowl.

Food Portion

Although in the end we did not achieve the level of food dispensing precision we wanted to, we were still able to create a system which constantly monitors the weight of the bowl and acts based off of a preset feeding schedule and the current reading of the sensor. In order to increase the precision as much as we could, at the time of a feed, the system dispenses the food in fairly small amounts repeatedly until the required meal weight is met. The reason this does not end up being perfectly accurate is that the system does not guarantee the same amount of food is dispensed for each dispense sequence, even the though the system is performing the same exact action.

The adaptive part of the food control has to due with the current weight of the bowl at the time of a feed. If, at the time of a feed, the force sensor reads we are already over the weight of the meal, then the system does not dispense any food, and the meal is effectively skipped. at the time of a feed, the system will also continue to attempt to dispense food until the desired weight of the meal is met or exceeded.

Safety

As far as safety is concerned, the only real issue here comes from the physical design. Given that we are working with up to 2.5 A of current in our system, it is important to conceal the electrical components as much as possible. Also given the fact that we are using a fair amount of water in close proximity to active electrical components, we did our best to keep them isolated from each other. Given time constraints, this was not executed to a very high safety standard as many of our wires are visible and accessible. Although that is really the only safety concern that has to do with our design and could be easily remedied with some wire organization and concealment.

Interference

When it comes to the interference aspect, we have yet to and do not expect to experience this in the slightest due to the fact that the system can function completely independently without any sort of outside or wireless signals required.

Usability

The user is provided with a fairly straight forward graphical user interface to interact with and control the system. Anyone with any sort of familiarity with screen interfaces should have no problem using the system. As far as the pet is concerned, all it has to do is eat and drink.