Comforting Dog Toy

My dog barks during the night and my mom speaks in a soothing tone to lull her back to sleep. I created a dog toy that responds to the sound of my dog barking and plays recordings of my mom's voice, with various comforting messages depending on the volume of the barks.

• Stuffed animal from Boston College bookstore
• Adafruit circuit playground
• Plug-in battery pack
• Plug-in speaker
• Wire stripper
• Screws and hex nuts
• Needle & thread
• Zipper
• Scrap fabric
• Safety pin

Use scrap fabric to sew together a small pouch. Attach a zipper to the opening of the pouch. Cut open the stuffed animal and remove a bit of stuffing. Sew the zipper around the edges of the hole in the stuffed animal.

Use Adafruit's "Playground Sound Meter" as an example for the segment of code that records the volume of sound detected by the CPB's built-in speaker. Speak into the mic at varying volumes and print/plot the data. Use the sound data to determine the volume levels at which a new audio recording will play.

Record .mp3 audio files with various messages. Open the audio files in Audacity to filter out background noise. Highlight an empty segment of audio and measure the noise profile. Use the noise profile to distinguish between speaking and background noise. Trim the audio and export the sound clip as a .wav file. Edit each audio file and download them into a folder on the CPB.

Remove the speaker jack to expose three wires. Run the CPB code and touch the speaker wires to the ground and signal pins to determine where each wire should be attached. Use screws to fasten the wires to the CPB pins. Save the code onto the CPB and plug in the battery pack.

Zip the speaker and battery pack inside the stuffed animal. Leave the CPB on the outside so the mic can pick up sound. Safety pin the CPB to the stuffed dog's chest and hide under BC sweatshirt.