UBC Undergraduate Research

Portable dog ball launcher (FetchIT) Bao, Robert; Priadi, Evan

Abstract

An autonomous portable ball launcher, named FetchIT, is designed and constructed by Evan Priadi and Robert Cheng Bao with Dr. David Jones and Jon Nakane as project sponsors. Only materials from the project lab are used to construct FetchIT. The goal of this project is to build a launching system that uses a spinning wheel to accelerate balls of various sizes that dog owners usually use for their dogs. The system uses a spring system that is similar to the suspension of a car to accept balls of various sizes. The system is able to recognize if the dog have retrieved the ball or not before launching again by using a contact with. It also allows the user to adjust the launching distance for the ball, by changing the pre-set speed levels with a single power button. The safety system is able to detect objects up to any distance up to 6 meters in front to prevent injuring people or dogs using a sonic sensor. FetchIT is able to launch a tennis-sized ball up to 10 metres and the smaller 56mm diameter ball up to 2 metres in front for about 30 minutes, with continuous use. The shooting distance can be improved further with more development time. One way to improve the system would be adjusting the suspension system and rail.

Item Media

Item Citations and Data

Rights

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International