Introduction:

A dog may be man’s best friend, but many of us live with cats, fish, iguanas, or even wilder animals. And naturally, we like to share our hacks with our pets. Whether it’s a robot ball-thrower, a hamster wheel that’s integrated into your smart home system, or even just an automatic feeder for when you’re not home, we want to see what kind of projects that your animal friends have inspired you to pull off.    

The top three entrants will receive a $150 gift certificate courtesy of DigiKey, this challenge's sponsor!

Honorable Mention Categories:

• Pet Safety: Nothing is better than a hack that helps your pet stay out of trouble. If your hack contributes to pet safety, we want to see it.  
• Playful Pets: Some hacks are just for fun, and that goes for our pet hacks too. If it’s about amusing either your animal friend or even yourself, it’s a playful pet hack. 
• Cyborg Pets: Sometimes the hacks aren’t for your pet, but on your pet. Custom pet prosthetics or simply ultra-blinky LED accoutrements belong here.
• Home Alone: This category is for systems that aim to make your pet more autonomous. That’s not limited to vacation feeders – anything that helps your pet get along in this world designed for humans is fair game.

Rules:

• All entries must be pet-relevant: improving life for your pet, or making your human’s life with the pet easier or more fun.
• We want to learn from you. Document your project as well as you can so that we can follow along.

• All entrants must agree to have the design published on Hackaday.

• Employees and contractors of DigiKey, Supplyframe, Siemens, Arduino, and their immediate family members are ineligible to win, but are still encouraged to enter.
• Rules and categories are subject to change and judges' decisions are final.

Examples

Need some inspiration? Here are some projects to check out that should get your ideas flowing:

• An aquarium controller is a classic small home automation hack – for those who live underwater. This multi-part video series tells all.
• Not all cats are housecats, and for feral felines, a feeder needs fortification.
• You live on the third floor, and your cat has gotten too old to climb the stairs? Cat elevator!
• If your furry friend brings you dead rodent “presents”, adding computer vision to your automatic pet door could just be the answer.
• OK, maybe lab mice aren’t exactly the pet mice you had in mind, but a VR rig for mice is pretty cool anyway. 
• Nobody keeps sea turtles as pets, but that doesn’t stop researchers from wanting to know where they’re going.
• Train your neighborhood crows to pick up cigarette buts with this peanut vending machine.
• Why settle for a simple henhouse? The Chicken McMansion is calling you!
• Chickens feeling cooped up during COVID-19? 3D printers to the rescue.
• If you have enough guinea pigs that their waste starts becoming an issue, consider turning feeding it into a DIY methane generator.
• Here’s an outdoor fish feeder with style. It’s a boat!
• Which cats have already been fed? The Cat-o-Matic 3000 knows!
• For the truly lazy cat, a chair that follows the sun.
• If your “fetch” arm is a little weak, this automatic ball launcher may be everyone’s best friend.
• Kaya is a dog with its own WiFi hotspot.
• When Lucy went blind, Bud made her a beeping “fetch” toy.
• A dog poop collecting drone is way overkill. And that’s why we love it.
• Magnets help keep this dog from eating poo.
• Mr. Goxx is a crypto-trading hamster.
• Mr. Fluffbutt has a hamster wheel that makes Peleton look like it’s for amateurs. 
• Harold automatically posts his every revolution on Hamsterbook.

Powered by DigiKey: