Comments on: Daphne’s tweeting catflap

By: bernie

bernie — Fri, 10 Aug 2018 08:19:11 +0000

Technically it’s possible to write a generative grammar that always produces correct grammar, but it’s hard work. I wouldn’t call stripping double punctuation in python a bodge, I’d call it a UX improvement :o) It’s in the same class as how the generator will let you write [node-name] or [Node-name] and the second will capitalise the first letter in the resulting text.

By: Nick Battle

Nick Battle — Thu, 09 Aug 2018 19:33:38 +0000

There’s an interesting problem with the generative grammar and punctuation. The topmost clause explicitly adds full stops after each subpart. But some of the subparts can end with ! or ? which results in doubly punctuated endings like!.

It’s tricky to fix though. I’m not sure that the generative system described here can flexibly handle closing punctuation? It could be bodged in the Python, but that’s a bit ugly.

By: bernie

bernie — Mon, 12 Dec 2016 11:28:39 +0000

If you're using the code that I put on GitHub, then it would be easy to swap out another camera. Edit capture-image.sh and replace it with an alternative Linux shell command that captures an image from your camera and saves it to a file called capture.jpg. I assume that the rpi-cam has a suitable command line utility?

By: Mark

Mark — Sun, 11 Dec 2016 17:06:05 +0000

Love this! Currently trying to implement it myself but a) my cats do not like the new catflap I brought and b) my USB webcam (a old ps3eyetoy) appears to have given up on life after years of being demoted to the loft.

Any pointers for getting this to work with the rpi-cam which I have abundances of??

By: bernie

bernie — Wed, 23 Nov 2016 12:32:35 +0000

Not really, whenever I needed to figure out how to do something I just hit up Google and tried lots of different things until I found something that worked. Lots of the info is in the form of technical discussions on various web forums and email group archives. Feel free to come back with specific questions if you get stuck. I’m on bernie@berniecode.com.

By: Sian Armstrong

Sian Armstrong — Wed, 23 Nov 2016 11:04:27 +0000

I LOVE this. Want to make one (modified a bit!) for my greyhound (hence the required modifications!)
I’m fully versed in coding (C and various others, but novice Python) and electronics, but a total Raspberry Pi novice. Planning to use such a project to get myself up to speed over the Christmas hols. But time is precious, so would love a few more pointers as to how to get started.
Any essential links you could point me to? :-)

By: Kate

Kate — Tue, 12 Apr 2016 21:48:42 +0000

Belatedly, as I’ve only just seen this @Slam, if it’s a Sureflap, speak to them; they’re very responsive. I know they’re developing some kind of IoT catflap, and it’s on my list to ask them if they’re going to provide an API. When I first started looking at how to put @Daphneflap on Twitter, I did a bit of digging around whether it could be triggered by the chip-reader on the Sureflap and had quite a long correspondence with the Raspberry Pi people about RFID. That was a dead end, and then Bernie came on board and made it all happen, but it’s definitely worth talking to Sureflap.

By: Slam

Slam — Tue, 26 Jan 2016 18:42:27 +0000

I like this, i am looking to do something similar and got very excited when i saw the make of catflap. I want to capture the chip id of each of my 3 cats so i can see when they have been coming and going. So far i have not found away to interrogate the circuit on my spare flap. Alas you have taken a fifferent approach but still a good idea.