The challenge of keeping an indoor cat occupied while its owners are away during the day has certainly produced some interesting efforts. The Solar Chaser uses the power of the sun to form a perpetually bobbing kitty toy, while the Cat DJ Scratching Deck serves as a potential launching pad for your feline's highly anticipated music career. The team behind Egg, a "cat companion" that mimics a small animal's movements, has hatched a different sort of plan.
Egg is a plastic-coated toy that responds to your cat's actions by replicating the movement and sounds of a small animal. Using a built-in gear motor to turn an offset weight, Egg rolls backwards and forwards over the floor while making animal-like sounds.
An on-board angular sensor on the Printed Circuit Board (PCB) enables the device to detect and adjust to different floor types, obstacles and your cat's interactions. The company says Egg will know when it is tapped, grabbed and pounced upon and will perform evasive maneuvers to keep kitty chasing it, rather than its own tail.
While still at the development stage, the company aims to deliver the Egg with a battery that provides power for one day of active play. It can be recharged through a Micro USB port that can also be used to connect the device to a computer (Windows or Mac) to configure Egg to operate in different modes.
Egg is currently the subject of a Kickstarter project with US$31 pledges still available with shipping estimated for June 2014 if all goes to plan.
You can see Egg in action in the video below.
Source: Egg
