Kickstarter Project Mousr: Mouse toy prey for your cat

A team at the University of Illinois known as Petronics has posted a project on Kickstarter named Mousr—it's a toy mouse for your cat that has smarts built in so that your cat won't grow bored with it.

Cat owners love their cats, they buy millions of dollars of food, litter and most especially, toys for them. The toys seem to serve two purposes, to amuse the cat owner as they watch their cat play with it, and to amuse the cat when the owner is away so that it won't get bored and chew up the couch. Mousr appears to be aimed at serving both purposes. The plastic mouse-looking device has wheels instead of feet and legs and has a plastic mouse exterior (with changeable tails) and electronics inside that help the robot detect when it's being chased and caught. It has a speaker too, to make the experience more real for the cat, and eyes that change color when the battery is running low.

The Petronics team is looking for $100, 000 to fully develop the idea. They want the robot mouse to act as much like a real mouse as possible, which would mean it would be a toy that a cat, because of its natural desire to hunt, would never grow weary playing with. If they get there, it's not difficult to imagine a Tom and Jerry scenario going on in the house all day as the mouse forever attempts to outwit, or outrun (and as part of the show, act as if truly fearing for its life), the cat.

Currently, the mouse has a 360-degree infrared camera and a unit that senses and measures inertial movement. The camera helps the mouse detect the presence of the cat, while the inertial unit lets it know if it's been caught. Mousr also has Bluetooth so users can control the mouse themselves with their smartphone, if they so desire. If the team is successful in meeting their financial goal, they plan to add AI hardware and/or software that will help the robot avoid obstacles, make decisions about where to run to get to places the cat can't reach, etc. They expect to have a finished product ready for delivery by October of next year.

© 2014 Tech Xplore