DinoFab ~ Automatic Ball Launcher for Dogs

The Automatic Ball Launcher for Dogs Version 2.0

This project is one that I've been wanting to build for a while now. I was inspired by a design I saw on "Prototype This" in the episode where they built a dog sitting robot. It had a ball launcher built into it that used a similar design to this one.

I used a salvaged power window drive motor from a BMW to power this. Any power window motor will work, and it will be up to you to figure out just how to adapt it to the mechanism. This project page is here to give you some guidelines and inspire you to try making one yourself.

It has a very simple wiring schematic:

Two micro switches and a relay take care of how the power is applied. As you can see, when the motor is parked there is no power going to the relay. When the ball gets dropped into the hopper and then onto SW1, the relay is energized and the motor begins to rotate. As the motor turns, a cam on the motor moves away from SW2 which takes over power distribution to the motor. The arms swings around and launches the ball which disengages SW1. The motor continues to turn until the cam comes back around and bumps SW2 at which point the motor stops and is parked, ready for another launch. Watch the video below for a more detailed explanation.

Here's a few pics:

Here's a video of it in action:

Questions? Email me at: makerdino@gmail.com