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The Flo Control Project



Bydoorsm

Boris Tsikanovsky had a cat named Flo, who sometimes brought prey into the house. To stop this, he rigged up a Practical Image Recognition System. A profile image is taken as soon as the cat begins to enter. If the image is not the cat’s normal recognizable profile, the cat door will not open. So if the cat is carrying something in her mouth, she cannot come in the house! This system also keeps other critters from entering. The explanation is a bit technical, but the pictures tell the story. You can also track the activities of his current cats, Squirrel and Alexia, at the “Flo Watch” page. Link -via Reddit


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Posted on October 3, 2007 at 5:56 pm by Miss Cellania
Category: Animal



12 comments to "The Flo Control Project"

  • algonkin
    October 3rd, 2007 at 6:26 pm

    That is simply brilliant!

  • biltmore
    October 3rd, 2007 at 6:32 pm

    Indeed algonkin!

  • unohav_1
    October 3rd, 2007 at 6:58 pm

    I SO needed this for my cat Husie growing up. We kept track for 1 year of how many animals she brought home. It was over 230, and those were just the ones she showed us! The next people to own our land will think we were devil worshippers with the amount of bones in our compost pile out back. ;)

  • Guyon
    October 3rd, 2007 at 7:04 pm

    *cat roams neighborhood*
    *cat gets in fight with dog*
    *dog scratches cats face*
    *dog chases cat back to house*
    *door doesn’t recognize cat’s face*
    *cat runs smack into door*
    *dog eats cat*

    Poor kitty! :’(

  • ted
    October 3rd, 2007 at 7:34 pm

    Why use a cat door at all?

    If it’s such a problem, just leave her outside with her lunch.

  • just a guy
    October 3rd, 2007 at 10:30 pm

    Im guessing Guyon didn’t actually look to see how this worked. ’cause a scratch wouldn’t change the cats profile silloutte enough. Perhaps if the dog bit off part of its face, but at that point, something tells me the cat wouldn’t have made it back to the house anyhow.

    No, i think the kitties will be fine.

  • Ali S.
    October 4th, 2007 at 12:25 am

    I just love that picture for this article. The cat has a look of annoyance of being controlled by a door. :)

  • Alex
    October 4th, 2007 at 1:50 am

    Poor cats, obviously they can’t bring paramours home …

  • Dim67
    October 4th, 2007 at 3:37 am

    I wonder if he can make a door like that for my wife…

    ;-)

  • Bob
    October 4th, 2007 at 9:03 am

    You have to understand the mind of a geek.

    I mentioned this story to a friend of mine a few years ago. He is a scientist with Dynetics Corp. (worked on the M.O.A.B project, he was very stressed during those 3 months) and was currently working on an independent target acquisition system for individual bomblets.

    His immediate response was to consider what system he would use to tackle the problem. I was certain I would see a new dog door next time I visited his house.

  • Drew
    October 4th, 2007 at 1:21 pm

    I kant bringz in cheezeburger?

  • choggie
    October 5th, 2007 at 9:42 pm

    *bubble for cat thought:
    (Boris, you are such an ubergeek!)

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