Bark like a Dog to Open the Door

What an ingenious project! A door that opens when you bark. Dave wanted to make an educational project that involved Raspberry Pi, and this is what he came up with.

The ‘Bark Activated Door Opening System’ involves barking, and besides barking, a bark detecting circuit which sends signals to the Raspberry Pi which identifies the barks. There is a motor driver circuit to maneuver an actuator that unlactches a door, and then (I love this part) a weight and pulley system flings the door wide open when the latch is removed. Check out the lovely video and enjoy this unique Door Opening System in action.

The audio detection circuit was bought and soldered in thirty minutes, and it worked well. Upon barking, the LED’s would glow. The signal of audio sensor is fed into the GPIO on the Raspberry Pi directly. With a Raspberry Pi in the centre, a motor driver PCB to the left (see image 1) a 12 volts supply can be fed to the actuator in either polarity to push open or pull close the door latch. On further right is the audio detection circuit PCB, and at the bottom is the 12V actuator.

This is a funny video and obviously there isn’t much practical use of this setup – it creates more problems than it solves – but full marks to the maker for ideating this one and being crazy enough (in the good way) to make it work. Kudos!