Smart Pet Bowl with Raspberry Pi

Create a mechanism to dispense food when the servo rotates.

1. Use a plastic container with a hole at the bottom.
2. Attach a servo-controlled gate or rotating platform to control food flow.
3. When the servo rotates, food should fall into the bowl.
4. Test manually by rotating the servo arm.

Wire the servo for GPIO control.

1. Connect the servo's red wire to a 5V pin on the Raspberry Pi.
2. Connect the servo's brown/black wire to a GND pin.
3. Connect the servo's orange/yellow wire to GPIO 18.

Write a Python script to manually trigger feeding.

1. Create a Python script that imports gpiozero.
2. Use the Servo class to control GPIO 18.
3. Test rotating the servo to dispense food.

from gpiozero import Servo
from time import sleep

servo = Servo(18)

# Dispense food
servo.max()
sleep(1)
servo.mid()
sleep(1)

Use cron to trigger feedings at set times.

1. Save your Python feeding script (e.g., feed.py).
2. Open crontab with 'crontab -e'.
3. Add a cron job to run the script at your desired feeding times (e.g., 8 AM and 6 PM).
4. Example: '0 8,18 * * * python3 /home/pi/feed.py'
5. Save and exit crontab.

Verify feedings happen on schedule.

1. Wait for the next scheduled feeding time, or temporarily set a cron job for a few minutes from now.
2. Watch the servo rotate and dispense food automatically.
3. Check the cron logs if the feeding doesn't happen.