Build A Better Mousetrap!
Chris Savage
Parallax EngineeringPosts: 14,406
Hello All,
·· This is actually an old project, but I’ve had a lot of requests to post it, so here it is.· If you're easily grossed-out, you may not want to read this part...But this is what got us started on building this project.· We used to live out in the country.· It was a nice area, and we lived in a small house.· Of course, being rural we had a mouse problem.· Normally we would stick a piece of cheese in a snap-trap and call it good.· We had mixed results.· Either the mouse would take the cheese and not set the trap off, or they'd get nailed and make a bloody mess out of the area where the trap was set!
·
·· One day (It was a hot one too) we came home and there was this awful stench coming from in the house.· The kind that makes you gag as soon as it hits you.· Upon entering the house we also noticed there were literally hundreds of flies, something we take great pains to get rid of.· My wife suggested that I check the garbage and the mouse traps.· The last one we checked was one we put in the back of our food cabinet where the mice have a little path between rooms.· As soon as we opened the cabinet, we knew we were in trouble!· Crawling around our cans & boxes of food were about 1,000 maggots!· We took a flashlight and looked in the back and there were the remnants of a mouse in the trap, crawling with maggots.
·
·· Suffice it to say, by the time we got done cleaning that mess up, we vowed to never go through that again.· Thus we set out to build a better mouse trap.· We decided the best way to handle this was by making 2 changes to the way a mouse-trap works.· First of all, we didn't think to check the trap because we were busy, and didn't even know we caught it.· Secondly, we needed to keep the mouse alive, so that it wouldn't attract maggots and such, and make a big stink.
·
·· Some answering machines have a feature that makes the machine beep every 10 seconds or so when there are new messages.· That way, when you come home, you're alerted to the fact that you have new messages.· We thought this was a good idea.· We needed to know when a mouse was caught, and catch him live, just in case we were gone for awhile, and so there's no bloody mess!· What better way to do this than with a BASIC Stamp?!?
·
·· The trap is built on a simple project enclosure you can buy for $5.00 from Radio Shack.· There is an opening at one end which the mouse enters the trap (Presumably to get the cheese).· If you place the trap along a wall where mice travel it will most likely enter the trap just out of curiosity.· We placed cheese on the far end of the box to increase the chance that the mouse would enter.· The mouse must completely enter the enclosure to get it.· About 2/3 of the way to the opposite end of the enclosure are an IR emitter and an IR detector.· They are mounted on each side of the box.· When the mouse crosses between them to get the cheese, he breaks the beam.· The BASIC Stamp is monitoring these sensors and detects this.· A servo is activated to swing a trap-door over the hole trapping the mouse, and an alarm sounds every 10 seconds to alert us that we have caught a mouse!· An LED also lights up.· Three mice were caught in the first week of use!
·
·· The better mouse-trap uses a surplus parallel LCD to display messages, which may seem a bit overkill with the Hobby Servo and other parts, but to me it was well worth the extra parts I had laying around the bench.· Below are a few pictures attached.· Being an older project I am still looking for the code for it.· Built this before I started organizing and backing up things!
·
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Chris Savage
Parallax Tech Support
csavage@parallax.com
·· This is actually an old project, but I’ve had a lot of requests to post it, so here it is.· If you're easily grossed-out, you may not want to read this part...But this is what got us started on building this project.· We used to live out in the country.· It was a nice area, and we lived in a small house.· Of course, being rural we had a mouse problem.· Normally we would stick a piece of cheese in a snap-trap and call it good.· We had mixed results.· Either the mouse would take the cheese and not set the trap off, or they'd get nailed and make a bloody mess out of the area where the trap was set!
·
·· One day (It was a hot one too) we came home and there was this awful stench coming from in the house.· The kind that makes you gag as soon as it hits you.· Upon entering the house we also noticed there were literally hundreds of flies, something we take great pains to get rid of.· My wife suggested that I check the garbage and the mouse traps.· The last one we checked was one we put in the back of our food cabinet where the mice have a little path between rooms.· As soon as we opened the cabinet, we knew we were in trouble!· Crawling around our cans & boxes of food were about 1,000 maggots!· We took a flashlight and looked in the back and there were the remnants of a mouse in the trap, crawling with maggots.
·
·· Suffice it to say, by the time we got done cleaning that mess up, we vowed to never go through that again.· Thus we set out to build a better mouse trap.· We decided the best way to handle this was by making 2 changes to the way a mouse-trap works.· First of all, we didn't think to check the trap because we were busy, and didn't even know we caught it.· Secondly, we needed to keep the mouse alive, so that it wouldn't attract maggots and such, and make a big stink.
·
·· Some answering machines have a feature that makes the machine beep every 10 seconds or so when there are new messages.· That way, when you come home, you're alerted to the fact that you have new messages.· We thought this was a good idea.· We needed to know when a mouse was caught, and catch him live, just in case we were gone for awhile, and so there's no bloody mess!· What better way to do this than with a BASIC Stamp?!?
·
·· The trap is built on a simple project enclosure you can buy for $5.00 from Radio Shack.· There is an opening at one end which the mouse enters the trap (Presumably to get the cheese).· If you place the trap along a wall where mice travel it will most likely enter the trap just out of curiosity.· We placed cheese on the far end of the box to increase the chance that the mouse would enter.· The mouse must completely enter the enclosure to get it.· About 2/3 of the way to the opposite end of the enclosure are an IR emitter and an IR detector.· They are mounted on each side of the box.· When the mouse crosses between them to get the cheese, he breaks the beam.· The BASIC Stamp is monitoring these sensors and detects this.· A servo is activated to swing a trap-door over the hole trapping the mouse, and an alarm sounds every 10 seconds to alert us that we have caught a mouse!· An LED also lights up.· Three mice were caught in the first week of use!
·
·· The better mouse-trap uses a surplus parallel LCD to display messages, which may seem a bit overkill with the Hobby Servo and other parts, but to me it was well worth the extra parts I had laying around the bench.· Below are a few pictures attached.· Being an older project I am still looking for the code for it.· Built this before I started organizing and backing up things!
·
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Chris Savage
Parallax Tech Support
csavage@parallax.com
320 x 240 - 19K
320 x 240 - 25K
232 x 209 - 11K
297 x 226 - 20K
243 x 221 - 12K
Comments
· Looks like a cool project, just curious though what was displayed on the LCD?
Kevin
P.S. Is anyone beating a path to your door?
·· Nobody is beating a path to my door...I don't think it got that kind of coverage.·
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Chris Savage
Parallax Tech Support
csavage@parallax.com
·· I found a copy of the code, but it looks as though I was in the middle of re-formatting and updating it, and never finished.· But it should give you an idea what's going on.· Because it's been so long I can't even guarantee this code will work as it is, but it should.
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Chris Savage
Parallax Tech Support
csavage@parallax.com
I already discovered the BETTER MOUSETRAP a while ago on your home page, and I still like this project.
My concern is what happens when you are not at home for a while. Will the mouse die because he has nothing to eat (except the little piece of cheese), or will it get dizzy because of the beeper sounding every 10 seconds
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Greetings from Germany,
G
·· Mice don't seem to die very easily (Except when their heads are in the snap-trap), but I figure a week will still see it alive when we return.
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Chris Savage
Parallax Tech Support
csavage@parallax.com
Maybe you should turn it into a gas chamber? lol
Seriously, what do you do with the mice you catch? My dad used to take his boot and crush their heads and I killed one with a blow gun once. hehe
cbmeeks
ps, darn weird first post on my part!
·· The whole idea is to keep the mice alive.· My wife doesn't like me killing anything.· The mice are taken to a local State Park area and let go near a swamp area.
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Chris Savage
Parallax Tech Support
csavage@parallax.com
Reminds me of the urban legend story: The average cost of rehabilitating a seal after the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska was $80,000. At a special ceremony, two of the most expensively saved animals were released back into the wild amid cheers and applause from onlookers. A minute later, in full view, they were both eaten by a killer whale.
Sorry, couldn't help myself.
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-Rusty-
--
Rusty Haddock = KD4WLZ = rusty@fe2o3.lonestar.org
**Out yonder in the Van Alstyne (TX) Metropolitan Area**
Microsoft is to software what McDonalds is to gourmet cooking
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Chris Savage
Parallax Tech Support
csavage@parallax.com
Post Edited (Chris Savage (Parallax)) : 6/6/2005 7:19:29 PM GMT
great idea - why don't you add one of the Ubicom IP devices - the mouse (or "catch anything") trap could send you an eMail on success. As an alternative, you could make it a WEB server allowing you to pop up an inventory list of caught items so far.
On the other hand - when following the circle of life, you might consider to replace the BS2-powered mouse trap by a BS2-powered snake instead
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Greetings from Germany,
G
·· Your wisdom preceeds you...A snake would last a lot longer without food, so I guess it would be a good trade-off.· Have it so when the mouse is caught the door closes, but then a barrier opens between two compartments and the mouse, who was after food, now becomes food.
·· At least that follows the laws of nature.· Then I don't have to feel bad that I am killing a rodent who has trespassed onto my property.· Of course, my wife will find some fault in it.· I will leave it up to the people who use the project to modify it to their own liking.· Thanks for sharing the ideas!
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Chris Savage
Parallax Tech Support
csavage@parallax.com
I took your idea and made it into a·guillotine fashion trap.·· My version·is not as pretty as yours, but we did capture a small opossum with it.
·
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Beau Schwabe
IC Layout Engineer
Parallax, Inc.
Post Edited (Beau Schwabe (Parallax)) : 6/6/2005 7:57:26 PM GMT
·· Awesome!· I knew someone had done something, but the ol' memory is getting slow.· Great job.· What did you glue everything with?· That stuff looks like the glue they use to hold cars together!· LOL
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Chris Savage
Parallax Tech Support
csavage@parallax.com
looks as if this turns into a highly sophisticated project...
I think time has come to think about adding some fuzzy logic to the "trap controller" making the right decision on what animal (according to the rules of nature) should be released to eat the trapped victim. This model could even be extended: Let's assume the trap did not catch a mouse for such a long period of time that the snake gets really hungry. In this case, the "trap controller" should be smart enough to release a creature eating the snake just to follow the laws of nature. Sorry, I'm not a biologist, so I don't know which animal eats snakes but I'm pretty sure, some humans do - I'd better stop following such ideas right now...
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Greetings from Germany,
G
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Beau Schwabe
IC Layout Engineer
Parallax, Inc.
How did that work?
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1 + 1 = Window
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
0............................................0
0............................................0
0.(Microman171@hotmail.com)..0
0............................................0
0............................................0
\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/
momentarily, the pin is pulled releasing the door, and the pin is moved back into position. The pin moving back serves as a locking mechanism so the top of the door does not lift past the pin.
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Beau Schwabe
IC Layout Engineer
Parallax, Inc.
your trap is a cool idea...and humane...well, unless you happen to catch a rat and a snake at the same time. Then, you took the fighting chance to live from the rat.... :-/
And it's is some good sheee... Stuff
Bean.
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"SX-Video·Module" Now available from Parallax for only $28.95
http://www.parallax.com/detail.asp?product_id=30012
Product web site: www.sxvm.com
"If you keep doing what you always did, you'll keep getting what you always got."
·
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Chris Savage
Parallax Tech Support
csavage@parallax.com
Like you used basic stamp and IR led and IR detector, but the question is which one?'
There is alot of them out there in parallax·product.
What basic stamp you use? BS1?BS2?HW?
· Also about the servo, do i need same servo as you used?
Post Edited By Moderator (Chris Savage (Parallax)) : 12/26/2005 5:31:08 PM GMT
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Chris Savage
Parallax Tech Support
csavage@parallax.com
Can i use a BS1 OEM
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Soon i will rule the world with my new Batman Technology
·I Will Have So much Power that EVIL WIll Fear ME
·································· HO HO HO You Are Doomed
···································Laughing Out Loud·
The BS2 OEM (kit) is on sale for $30 here www.parallax.com/detail.asp?product_id=27291
Stock#: 27112 Category: Boards-BASIC Stamp
Price: $29.00
Weight: 0.18 lb.
Quantity: 1
http://www.parallax.com/detail.asp?product_id=27112
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Soon i will rule the world with my new Batman Technology
·I Will Have So much Power that EVIL WIll Fear ME
·································· HO HO HO You Are Doomed
···································Laughing Out Loud·
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Chris Savage
Parallax Tech Support
csavage@parallax.com
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Soon i will rule the world with my new Batman Technology
·I Will Have So much Power that EVIL WIll Fear ME
·································· HO HO HO You Are Doomed
···································Laughing Out Loud·
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Chris Savage
Parallax Tech Support
csavage@parallax.com
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Soon i will rule the world with my new Batman Technology
·I Will Have So much Power that EVIL WIll Fear ME
·································· HO HO HO You Are Doomed
···································Laughing Out Loud·