Automatic Chicken Feeder

Our project, the automatic chicken feeder, can be used for easier and more efficient chicken feeding. It will make the twice a day feeding as simple as pressing a button. We wanted to do this project because one of us is taking home four of the chickens we raised at school. He wanted to make his chicken related chores easier and less time consuming.

There were some challenges that we faced. The challenge that we faced the most was that the motor was not strong enough, or the containers movement was not stable. The motor we used was not strong enough to lift all the food, so we had to put it at a slant to distribute the weight across the feeder. The container was originally designed to push up the food and then it would fall out a hole, but when the container was pushed up, the container would fall over. We scrapped that idea and went with a wheel that would push out the food, and it was more feasible than the last idea.In the process of doing this project, we learned that dc motors are not the strongest and we needed to not put all the weight on the motor, or else it would not work.

Our next steps would be to build the feeder with plywood and nails, instead of cardboard, duct tape, and hot glue, and replace the DC motor with a stronger one. If someone else is going to build this, I would recommend them to use a more powerful motor than a DC motor.The cost was estimated to be about $16.50. This includes plywood for structure, the DC motor for the automatic part, a couple thin steel rods that can be used as axles. On the Paper Mech website, we found a simple machine to push up and down a platform, but that idea was eventually scrapped due to the platform not being stable. http://www.papermech.net/up-down-crank/

Prototype of chicken run roof

     For our Maker Faire project, we decided to prototype a roof for our chicken coop, the floor of which got really mucky, disgusting, smelly, unpleasant, and generally awful. And then, we spent 3-4 hours shoveling and carrying the lumpy, smelly, watery upper layer and the squishy (but still miasmic) lower layer in a successful attempt to clean the run. The roof we designed had an accordion folding mechanism which enables it to close up when the sun was out and cover the chicken run while it is raining.

     The most noticeable differences between using the cardboard and the aesthetically stunning plastic roof were the lids having edges and that we had to drill holes in the plastic lids. Aside from that, it still follows the formula of 1. Make holes midway on the flat things ➙ 2. Duct tape it together ➙ 3. Insert strings ➙ 4. Tie (hex) nuts on string.

One of our 4 signs

  Aside from drill(IlIlIlIlI) safety, we didn’t think we learned much else from this. However, we have to put something here, so we now can say that we learned how to meet requirements that didn’t happen. In the future, we plan to scale up into a roof that fits®️. If you tried to do this, try making the full chicken run roof, as we spent about 3 out of 7 periods brainstorming and still finished. We also made 4 advertisements in full colored sharpie, on cardboard, 3 of them about the booth. However, the booth next to us got about 3 times more customers (admittedly, they were offering FREE CAKE!).Then again, they stood in front of our booth with nothing to do, so we did benefit from the CAKE. Therefore, we can conclude that advertising doesn’t work and that if you want visitors, OFFER (free) FOOD.

     The accordion folding chicken run roof is made of 100% reused materials from The Bin of Creative Genius. (technically, to do this at home, you’ll need 1 roll of duct tape ($5-13), nuts (the cheapest I could find was $0.38) and string (<$10). Cardboard is basically free, and lids, lids are strangely priced and so we don’t have a proper price for this.) However, a final draft of the chicken roof will be made from higher quality materials and will cost money. Our inspiration did not come from the internet, but it did come from the actual chicken coop. The muck and sludge in the chicken coop is caused by rain, so we wanted to create an alternative to the tarp. The prototype that we created is compact and holds its shape.