Have you ever wanted your very own Cattail? Well now you can! From the nostalgic game Plants Versus Zombies, Cattail is your adorable 3D printed companion equipped with an arduino, sonar sensor, DC motor, and a servo motor to protect your back from whatever danger you might find yourself in.
Plants Versus Zombies was one of my favourite games growing up, and my favourite plant was the Cattail! (who'd have guessed that?) I would purposely spend more sun for no reason just so I could plant it. Additionally this was a good project to test my terrible CAD skills! Please do excuse if it looks a bit wonky, we can chalk that up to it being unique.
Cattail has a mind of its own! (Not really) It follows a code in which it will activate a DC motor that fires toothpicks when the sonar sensor detects something within X distance. It will stop firing when the threat is no longer there.
Cattail uses a servo sensor in its tail to move around, acting as a turret. If you want your cat to detect things further, change the X value at the top of the code.
Assembly Instructions can be found here
Cattail is easy to set up!
Load up some toothpicks (or something of 6.5cm length and 2mm diameter) into the feeder and watch as the cattail starts firing when it detects an object within its sight.
Electronic Models used:
Servo Motor By: Ludvig Broomé
Arduino UNO By: Ludvig Broomé
DC Motor By: Henry Levesque
Sonar Sensor By: Tom Knox
Battery By: Dave Cancilier
Some useful websites/videos that helped me make this project possible: https://howtomechatronics.com/tutorials/arduino/ultrasonic-sensor-hc-sr04/#google_vignette
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TOedgF0n4yQ
This project is in no way associated with EA games or the Plants Vs. Zombies branding. This is a non-commercial and fan made project inspired by Plants Vs. Zombies and was created for personal education purposes.
