A dog feeder you control from your phone

PetCare was our fourth-year ICT project, in 2025, at ORT. The idea: a dog feeder for people who leave for work or step out for a while and can't feed their dog when they'd like. It doesn't replace anyone; it automates an everyday task.

What it did

• —It served food at the times and portions the owner chose, or on demand from the app.
• —It dispensed water automatically, and treats at the press of a button in the app.
• —It had a camera to watch the dog live, plus a microphone and speaker to talk to it remotely.
• —It counted how many times the dog ate and drank.
• —It recommended how much food to give based on breed and weight, and answered the owner's questions with AI.

My part: the server

A classmate handled the hardware and I handled the backend: the server and database that connect the app to the machine. Every schedule, every portion and every dog went through it. It's the part you don't see, but if it fails, the dog doesn't eat on time.

We also put together the business model: selling the device and a subscription for extra features, like storing video in the cloud and seeing statistics.

What I take from it

• —When software moves something physical, a bug isn't a broken screen: it's a portion that doesn't drop.
• —Software that moves something in the real world: the same thing I do today with robots at Gemm, on a small scale.