The Cat Flap Experiment

Download catflap.ddw

Most cat owners think that their pampered pets spend a life of complete idleness. Draw your own conclusions from the data in this experiment.

Method

The use of a cat flap by two cats is detected by an Infra Red Blue Box sensor, recorded by DL plus using the Frugal recording mode (DL plus can resolve time to the nearest 8 seconds in this mode).

Each peak represents a cat passing by the sensor. The body heat of the cat is detected by the Infra-red sensor and the change in reading triggers a "frugal" recording of a new data point. The cat swiftly passes by and the next data point is likely to be almost back down to "background" level.

Changes in level apart from the spikes could be caused by background environment changes (including possibly a cat sleeping nearby between about 9.00 and 12.00 am).

Results

But were they your cats? Or the neighbourhood strays after a free meal? The best way to find out is to use VideoLogging.