This collar guides dogs directly to a certain location via a laser pointer attached to system of programmed servos. It was designed in partnership with Harmony Village, an innovative new development that has been working with our studio. One of their big focuses is promoting harmonious living between pets and humans — as a result, our studio prompt was centered around human-pet interaction.

This project went through several iterations before arriving at our final prototype. Initially, our project idea involved passive chips in the dog collar, and geolocation devices placed in the street lamps in the development. This was too extraneous to implement, so we evolved to a Laser-Led Dog Collar. The collar is designed to help balance freedom and safety in the pet owner’s mind; it allows the owner to lead the dog places remotely as well as safely. Our project uses an Arduino which interfaces with a SIM card via an Adafruit FONA 808 board, giving the collar access to the Internet and GPS satellites. The software interfaces with Google Maps, parsing the walking directions for people into a series of steps for the dog. This has the dual advantages of making the software more power — by leveraging Google Map’s routing algorithms — and safer, by keeping the dogs on the sidewalk like any pedestrian.