Make a Waving Fortune Cat
Use a micro:bit and mini servo to make your very own Maneki-Neko, or Fortune Cat, who waves its hand when you press a button!
Designed and written by Tim Ho from the National University of Singapore.
Goals
- Make a moving cardboard cat.
- Give cat an action which you desire.
- Hint: Follow the steps and pictures during your building process!
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Materials
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Step 1 – Choose a cat
- Find a cat image and stick over a cardboard for support.
- Choose a cat personality of your choice. Happy, relaxed or friendly!
Step 2 – Connect electronic parts.
- Connect the following on the breakout board
- ADKeypad to Pin ‘0’.
- Mini Servo to Pin ‘1’.
- Two LED lights to Pin ‘2’ and Pin ‘8’.
The colours of the jumper wires don’t actually affect how the electronics work. But it is good practice to follow a colour convention so that you can easily identify where which cables are attached to.
Step 3 – Join up electronics to cardboard
- Mount the mini servo to right side of your cardboard cat.
- Create two openings on the cardboard for the LED lights to shine through
Step 4 – Code Microbit
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- Create block code in make code on the left.
- When Button ‘A’ is pushed
- Two LED lights up
- Servo motor turns
Cool stuff!
Now you’ve brought your cat to life. Think of a variety of movements for your cat. Enjoy and add them on to the cat!