No matter the weather, dog owners must walk their dogs, or at the least let them outside to use the bathroom, so wet and muddy paws that track mud through the house become an issue. This was one of the many thoughts that crossed our mind while coming up with this dog mat. At first, we thought we had a good idea in an automatic dog door that used motors, sensors, and electronics for both human and dog, but there were already a lot of dog doors like that, and we wanted to build something new, different, and original — something that would be useful to people that have a hard time drying their dog's paws or owners whose dogs go in and out on their own and track dirt and mud through the house.

In Design Thinking, there is something called the “crooked path;” this is when one idea brings us to the next. After days and days of thinking about new ways to change doggy doors, we found ourselves back at square one — until the thought of a doggy mat became an idea. Multiple ideas for this creation were made: drop down mat, folding mat, rolling mat. After sleeping on it, we decided on the folding mat.

A small cardboard version was made of just a door frame, wall, and the device itself. The way this worked was when the door was opened it would pull down the mat, and when you close the door, you pull up the mat. After this, the idea to add a dispenser was suggested. The reasoning for this was that when a dog does a good thing, they get a reward, like a treat. You can train a dog to keep doing things over and over as long as they get a reward. So by rewarding the dog after stepping on the mat, it tells the dog to step on it after coming inside. The reasoning for it folding up is so that the dog can’t just step on to the mat whenever and get a treat. If it folds up, then they can’t just step on it and get a treat.

After creating a little cardboard prototype, we decided to make a more realistic sized mat. We cut two pieces of cardboard. One was taped to a table and represented the wall. The other section was the piece that moved, and it was attached with duct tape as a hinge. After this, we connected the ropes that would be used for bringing up and lowering down the mat. We contemplated what to use for a motor (i.e.., stepper motor, conventional motor, etc.), and then we decided to just use a drill for simplicity. Mr. Moody helped us figure out what to use for a spool, and he suggested we take a short PVC pipe (Polyvinyl Chloride) and attach it to a hole saw which connects into the chuck of the drill. After testing the drill, we saw that it had enough power to pull up the mat, but we noticed that the rope would not stay on the spool, so we glued two circles on each end of the pipe. We tested this and found it still did not solve our problem. Then we attached eye hole screws close together on the “wall.” This changed the point of force on the wall. This allowed the rope to collect on the spool evenly. We used a dispenser that was made from a previous project with an Arduino coded  to turn a stepper motor when the button was pushed.

Now it was time to create a more structured prototype. We obtained two pieces of half-inch plywood around the same size as the cardboard we were using. We screwed one board into the table, once again using it to represent the wall, and the other was attached using hinges. This was the moving part of our project. We attached the ropes and the eye hole screws. We soon learned that the drill was not strong enough to pull this heavier mat up. So, for now, it is physically pulled up. Later versions will have a strong enough motor.

We mounted a button under the mat and connected it to the dispenser attached to the wall. When there is pressure applied to the button, it tells the Arduino Uno (a microcontroller that many students use in the innovation classroom) to spin the stepper motor 90 degrees, dropping a treat. Another way this works is by a pull switch:when there is a pull motion on the towel which is located on the mat, it triggers the switch and tells the Arduino Uno the same thing.