If there’s anything as American as baseball and apple pie, it’s gotta be the Kit-Kat clock in the kitchen. For the unfamiliar, the Kit-Kat clock is special in that its pendulum tail and eyes move back and forth with each passing second. They’re equal parts cute and creepy.
But not this particular Kit-Kat, not once [Becky Stern] got a hold of it. The cute/creepy scales have been tipped, because the eyes of this Kat follow you around the room. “You” in this case is fellow maker [Xyla Foxlin], whom [Becky] drew in the Maker Secret Santa pool. See, [Xyla] loves cats, but is deathly allergic to them. So really, what better gift is there?
In order to make this happen, [Becky] started by disconnecting the long lever that link the eyes and the tail, which move together, and connected a servo horn to the eyes. [Becky] drilled out the nose in order to fit the camera, which is connected to a Seeed Grove AI Vision board with a Xiao RP2040 piggybacked on top.
While soldering on the servo wires, [Becky] accidentally detached a tiny capacitor from the AI Vision board, but it turns out that it wasn’t critical. Although she only had to write one line of code to get it to work, it ended up working too well, with the eyes darting around really quickly. By making the servo move in timed increments to the new positions, it’s now much more creepy. Be sure to check out the build video after the break.
You know we can’t resist a clock build around here, especially when those clocks are binary.
Oh funny. I watched a video about this yesterday from the makers secret santa group on YT. They make cool gifts for each other.
I started with Tony, making these clamps, then went to check Becky’s, but it wasn’t up yet. Now I get to go watch Xyla.
Wait until you get to Colin Furze!
Next step: Have it recognize if you’re looking at it, and have it go (not so) quickly back to regular mode.
That would make an EPIC Halloween prop.
That is diabolical.
I wonder if easy-enough facial recognition could make it so that it would recognize a person, do the creepy following them thing for a while, then not do it anymore. Like, when they try to point it out to someone and it is just a “regular creepy” cat clock and your friend thinks you are crazy.
You can get facial recognition modules, eg the HLK-TX510 for around $50 that are as easy as using a PIR sensor. Basically pin goes high if a face is present.
I presume they’re just using the same stuff as phones do, so only work if you are directly in front. I’ve no doubt ones exist that’ll pick a face out of a crowd that’ll work for your clock.
Must buy one of those one day, they look like fun.
Sparkfun had modules like wear you describe for under $10 right now
A friend and I have been working on a project just like that! https://github.com/dasl-/watchcat
Here’s a video of it in action: https://photos.google.com/share/AF1QipPvP9YlOH5Qc7G0Nz49wJ9ykukId6hT3zfr1va3DnPbWCsDBZmAABXkioHcAZx1RA/photo/AF1QipOdSbs5pBwIXLMgiSI–YvW-ZfOtwXtUqjgX0ca?key=ajhqZk1PcG5wUFB4WnJGOHoxLS1ZT0hRVGNRdzF3
“See, [Xyla] loves cats, but is deathly allergic to them. So really, what better gift is there?”
How ’bout a Hypoallergenic Cat? While all cats produce allergens in their fur, saliva, and urine, some breeds (commonly called “hypoallergenic cats”) produce lower levels of the proteins that trigger allergies. There is no such thing as a completely hypoallergenic cat, but certain breeds might be a better fit for some people who sneeze and itch around kitties.[1]
* References:
1. 11 ‘Hypoallergenic’ Cats for People With Allergies
https://www.petmd.com/cat/general-health/hypoallergenic-cat-breeds