Possibly The Best Use Yet For A Raspberry Pi?

I’ve heard of many uses for the Raspberry Pi but I never knew you could use one to deter a cat from leaving its business in your garden. However, that is exactly what Joshua Thumim created – a feline repellent system.

Thumim was disgusted at how many cat turds he kept finding in his garden, all from the neighbour’s cats.  He explains: “For the last few years, pretty much every time I (or my two small kids) wanted to use the garden I’d first have to remove 3-5 cat turds of varying stages of decomposition. I did try several alternatives first, but nothing really worked, and eventually my patience ran out. Think Michael Douglas in Falling Down.”

He  was able to create the cat deterrent using his Model B Raspberry Pi, that was fitted into a waterproofed box and featured a Pi Cam and PIR. Then along with a PiFaceDigitallO, a 24VAC solenoid water valve, AC/AC adapter, a garden sprinkler, some wire and hosepipe, never again did he have to remove turds from his garden as the cats never even got the chance to squat.

“The solenoid is switched via the PiFace relay in response to a PIR signal, controlled via about 40 lines of pretty amateurish Python, the main feature being use of the PiCam Python library which has a circular stream buffer feature for the video, allowing capture of pre-event footage,” said Thumim.

To see the “Cat-O-Bolt” in action, check out the hilarious videos below.