The average garden dog will play fetch long beyond the average human’s endurance. If you want to keep your dog exercised without hurting your pitching arm, [brankly’s] automatic dog ball launcher might just be what you need.
The design is straightforward. The 3D printed housing features a large funnel into which a ball can be dropped. A servo then holds the ball while a pair of rollers are spun up by brushed DC motors. After two seconds, the servo releases the ball towards the rollers which launch the ball out of the machine. A Raspberry Pi Pico runs the show, controlling the timing of the ball launch and varying the motor speed to change the distance the ball is launched on each firing.
Files are available on Thingiverse for those eager to build their own. If you’re good, you might even be able to train your dog to drop the ball in themselves. We’ve seen similar builds before, too! Video after the break.
i don’t have a dog but wouldn’t it make more sense to build it in such a way that the dog can actually put the ball back for another go?
No evidence that it does. The dog can’t even pick up the ball. I have a cat. I wonder if it could shoot mice?
I had a cat that played fetch with a piece of scrumpled up paper. Endlessly brought it back for another throw. I’m sure cats would be intelligent enough to put it back in the launcher, but dogs….
I would say yes, assuming your dog is of average intelligence or higher.
I have a dog that actually looks like a dog.
It looks like it might injure the dog if he gets in front of the thing just before it launches the ball. Of course, it would probably only happen once- even a dog isn’t stupid enough to do it over and over. Still, you don’t want to break the dog’s nose or teeth…
Humans are supposed to be smarter, but then there’s this: https://darwinawards.com/stupid/
Some of these are repeat offenders. So I think as far as our canine companions are concerned, it depends. Most will learn, a small fraction will not.
It’s probably a re-enforcing behaviour though. Every time you do it, it’s less likely you’ll learn anything…
Dog balls are usually soft so they can pick them up with their teeth. Unless you’re putting rocks in there, they’re probably going to be fine.
This one wins for me… an oldie…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PcL6-mjRNk
Kinda looks like the piggy bank in Squid Game…
You ever try to play fetch with a Shih-tzu? They just look at you. Whatever you are doing, it clearly has nothing to do with the dog.