concept generation

I love animals, and I think it will keep me interested in working with a pet. Therefore, I've chosen to do a project within the area of "Cyber-Therianthropy".

I've came up with two concepts, and I havent decide which one to choose from.

a fitness programme for pet (target pet: rat)
basic activities of rat includes eating, sleeping and exercise. This fitness programme aims to keep the rat in a healthy condition, balancing its amount of food intake and its amount of exercise, so that the rat will not eat too much and sleep but not getting enough exercise.

In the cage there's sensor set up at the food area and at the exercise wheel, and there's lighting set up around the cage. If the rat goes to grab its food, the sensor at the food area will detect it and will add 1 point to the programme counter. If the rat goes onto the running wheel, the counter will decrease 1 point at every 10 rotations. The aim is to keeps the counter below 3. If the counter is over 3 points, the lights turn on. Rats don't like bright lights, it will disturb their sleep. The only way to turn off the lights is to run on the wheel until the counter goes back below 3.
This fitness programme can be done using arduino and processing.


a game for pet and owner to play together (traget pet: rat)
This game involve two players. Player 1 - the rat and player 2 - the owner.
The rat will be place in a running wheel. As it runs, it controls the game character's movement, and the character will move forward. As it stop running, the character will stop moving. At certain point, enemies will appear and it is the owner's role to control the character for attack, jump etc. The pet and the owner will have to work together to the winning point, and such bonding can establish a more intimate relationship between the two.
The game can be done using arduino and flash.