Petcube - pet gadget
Hello everyone, my name is Alexander Neskin. I live in Kiev, I work in the field of IT and enjoy robotics. In this post I will tell you how innocent enough fun with the Arduino turned into a promising project. Oh yes, all this is called Petcube - a robot that will allow your pets to forget about loneliness and depression in those moments while you are not at home.
')
I live with my girlfriend, and we also have a dog named Rocky on a regular meeting. Not so long ago we moved to a new apartment. A great place to start-up: high ceilings, large windows, maximum light. All is good, but Monty felt uncomfortable. In our presence, the dog still somehow restrained his anxiety, but as soon as we went to work, Rocky immediately began to crush furniture and spoil the walls. But this is not the worst thing - the soundtrack for the neighbors was a prolonged barking, which did not stop for a minute. It got to the point that they wanted to call the police. I did not want to part with my beloved dog. It was necessary to urgently save the situation.
At one point, I remembered my "designer for adults." The overwhelming circumstances pushed me to finally collect something practical on my favorite Arduino board. I connected a webcam to it, two servomotors for rotation, and taped a simple laser pointer with my scotch tape — Rocky's favorite toy. Many animals, especially cats and dogs, are crazy about the moving rays of light: sunbeams or laser pointers. In order to watch Rocky outside the home, a web interface and simple control of the camera and laser position was created.
First prototype
Later he opened access to managing the device and shared a link with friends. It was the first success - friends liked to play with Rocky, and the dog itself was happy with its life like never before. It turned out that many friends had similar problems with bored pets, so they also wanted to have such a simple but effective device.
The first web-based gadget management interface
I am an IT specialist by vocation and education, so I clearly understood that I want to focus on the technical side of the project. Immediately began the search for like-minded people who would help with the visual component, as well as with the promotion and organization of business.
It is clear that aesthetics and notorious usability dominate the world of things. The second person in the team was Andrew Klen - a talented designer, with whom I worked over the past years.
With the first prototype, I attended several conferences and received extremely positive feedback. For example, at Hackers & Founders in Odessa, the project won in a small competition of business ideas. I came to Odessa with two friends from Prodigi (the agency where I work as a service station) - Roller Gritsenko and Yaroslav Azhnyuk. We talked about the idea of ​​a joint project, new goals, free niches in the market and a big picture of the future, where the phenomenon of “ internet of things ” is rapidly entering. Jaroslav was going to leave his position at SMM Head in Prodigi to start his own business, although he hadn’t got a specific project yet. The idea of ​​a pet robot seemed ideal, and he soon joined the Petcube team as CEO.
We started to actively engage in the project in August. My mission is the product itself, and this is not only hardware and server-side, but also interfaces for the browser and mobile applications. Of course, many problems arise: it is difficult to produce even a plastic casing for the prototype in Ukraine. Briefly from the latest achievements: we managed to make the second version of the prototype using Artem Lutov, the top-tier Android developer and researcher, work out a serious business plan, shoot a demo video for Kickstarter, successfully reject it and start shooting a new one.
Video from the shooting of the video for Kickstarter
So far, the main “Milestone” is the successful participation in IDCEE. The Petcube stand always had a crowd of people who claimed that our project was the most interesting and unusual at the whole event. Some simply approached to communicate and get acquainted, and all ended with business proposals. So there was an understanding that we are on the right track.
Petcube team
Second prototype
The second version of the web interface
The next point in the project should be Kickstarter, then raising a round of investment already across the ocean. We communicated with many investors in Ukraine, acquired pleasant impressions and useful experience.
A small reference: the market for pet products in the United States amounted to $ 51 billion in 2011 and is growing at 2% per year. In the States, 62% of the population has pets, 20% of owners of cats and dogs leaves the TV on, so that the animals are not bored during their absence. Today this problem is solved by live hired people who look after pets. There are practically no high-tech and easy-to-use methods.
We are sociable and open to proposals for cooperation. We need people who together with us will force Petcube to work in the most reliable way.
First of all, we are looking for technical specialists for the development of hardware & software, circuit design gurus and product designers.
I am sure that among the readers of Habr there are a lot of people to whom Petcube will seem interesting. And if you want to become part of a project with good meaning and a good, in some ways even noble, mission, we will be glad to meet you. Many of them have pets, and every owner will say that his pets are not supposed to be sad. Write to info@petcube.net
upd: Thank you all, we are on the main page! Because of habraeffekt of an image some time were not displayed but already all fixed. Added a screenshot of the second version of the web interface.
upd2: We found problems with the email address info@petcube.net, we have already fixed everything. If you wrote to us at this address - please send the same letter again. We received a lot of calls through other channels, thanks to everyone who became interested, we will respond within 24 hours)
')
Idea
I live with my girlfriend, and we also have a dog named Rocky on a regular meeting. Not so long ago we moved to a new apartment. A great place to start-up: high ceilings, large windows, maximum light. All is good, but Monty felt uncomfortable. In our presence, the dog still somehow restrained his anxiety, but as soon as we went to work, Rocky immediately began to crush furniture and spoil the walls. But this is not the worst thing - the soundtrack for the neighbors was a prolonged barking, which did not stop for a minute. It got to the point that they wanted to call the police. I did not want to part with my beloved dog. It was necessary to urgently save the situation.
At one point, I remembered my "designer for adults." The overwhelming circumstances pushed me to finally collect something practical on my favorite Arduino board. I connected a webcam to it, two servomotors for rotation, and taped a simple laser pointer with my scotch tape — Rocky's favorite toy. Many animals, especially cats and dogs, are crazy about the moving rays of light: sunbeams or laser pointers. In order to watch Rocky outside the home, a web interface and simple control of the camera and laser position was created.
First prototype
Later he opened access to managing the device and shared a link with friends. It was the first success - friends liked to play with Rocky, and the dog itself was happy with its life like never before. It turned out that many friends had similar problems with bored pets, so they also wanted to have such a simple but effective device.
The first web-based gadget management interface
Like-minded people
I am an IT specialist by vocation and education, so I clearly understood that I want to focus on the technical side of the project. Immediately began the search for like-minded people who would help with the visual component, as well as with the promotion and organization of business.
It is clear that aesthetics and notorious usability dominate the world of things. The second person in the team was Andrew Klen - a talented designer, with whom I worked over the past years.
With the first prototype, I attended several conferences and received extremely positive feedback. For example, at Hackers & Founders in Odessa, the project won in a small competition of business ideas. I came to Odessa with two friends from Prodigi (the agency where I work as a service station) - Roller Gritsenko and Yaroslav Azhnyuk. We talked about the idea of ​​a joint project, new goals, free niches in the market and a big picture of the future, where the phenomenon of “ internet of things ” is rapidly entering. Jaroslav was going to leave his position at SMM Head in Prodigi to start his own business, although he hadn’t got a specific project yet. The idea of ​​a pet robot seemed ideal, and he soon joined the Petcube team as CEO.
Plans
We started to actively engage in the project in August. My mission is the product itself, and this is not only hardware and server-side, but also interfaces for the browser and mobile applications. Of course, many problems arise: it is difficult to produce even a plastic casing for the prototype in Ukraine. Briefly from the latest achievements: we managed to make the second version of the prototype using Artem Lutov, the top-tier Android developer and researcher, work out a serious business plan, shoot a demo video for Kickstarter, successfully reject it and start shooting a new one.
Video from the shooting of the video for Kickstarter
So far, the main “Milestone” is the successful participation in IDCEE. The Petcube stand always had a crowd of people who claimed that our project was the most interesting and unusual at the whole event. Some simply approached to communicate and get acquainted, and all ended with business proposals. So there was an understanding that we are on the right track.
Petcube team
Second prototype
The second version of the web interface
The next point in the project should be Kickstarter, then raising a round of investment already across the ocean. We communicated with many investors in Ukraine, acquired pleasant impressions and useful experience.
Perspectives
A small reference: the market for pet products in the United States amounted to $ 51 billion in 2011 and is growing at 2% per year. In the States, 62% of the population has pets, 20% of owners of cats and dogs leaves the TV on, so that the animals are not bored during their absence. Today this problem is solved by live hired people who look after pets. There are practically no high-tech and easy-to-use methods.
We are sociable and open to proposals for cooperation. We need people who together with us will force Petcube to work in the most reliable way.
First of all, we are looking for technical specialists for the development of hardware & software, circuit design gurus and product designers.
I am sure that among the readers of Habr there are a lot of people to whom Petcube will seem interesting. And if you want to become part of a project with good meaning and a good, in some ways even noble, mission, we will be glad to meet you. Many of them have pets, and every owner will say that his pets are not supposed to be sad. Write to info@petcube.net
upd: Thank you all, we are on the main page! Because of habraeffekt of an image some time were not displayed but already all fixed. Added a screenshot of the second version of the web interface.
upd2: We found problems with the email address info@petcube.net, we have already fixed everything. If you wrote to us at this address - please send the same letter again. We received a lot of calls through other channels, thanks to everyone who became interested, we will respond within 24 hours)
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/159763/
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