6 ms·
A physicist rigged his pet hamster’s wheel to upload to Strava
- aanet 2mo agoMollie the Hamster, on Strava: https://strava.app.link/FMubyPjMa5b https://strava.app.link/FMubyPjMa5b Project: > The main parts are an ESP32 attached to a hall sensor, which I positioned close to the wheel. Using a magnet attached to the back of the wheel, this tells the ESP32 when a full rotation has completed. It gives a timestamp (and total distance) to each magnet-pass, which is stored on the network. A python script (on my laptop) then retrieves this data in the morning, turns it into a .FIT file, and uploads it to Strava through the Strava API (with a randomly chosen run title, taken from a mostly AI-generated list of options, as I needed >100). In terms of manual additions, I had to add the photo manually, and Mollie had to do the running. More here: https://www.reddit.com/r/SideProject/comments/1v9uyq0/i_built_a_speeddistance_tracker_for_my_hamster/ https://www.reddit.com/r/SideProject/comments/1v9uyq0/i_buil...
- mpfh 2mo ago[dead]
- brightbeige 2mo agohttps://old.reddit.com/r/SideProject/comments/1v9uyq0/i_built_a_speeddistance_tracker_for_my_hamster/ https://old.reddit.com/r/SideProject/comments/1v9uyq0/i_buil...
- jader201 2mo ago> Log in to use old Reddit
- shawn_w 2mo agoYeah, that's a recent change. Probably the first nail in the coffin for it.
- enjoyyourlife 2mo agoTry using https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/68acaf9111064d669ba0/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/68acaf9111064... so you don't have to login
- SyzygyRhythm 2mo agoNeat! Not to toot my own horn too much, but I put together a similar project for my cat's exercise wheel. Hackaday featured it a while back: https://hackaday.com/2023/04/02/spy-on-your-cat-to-make-sure-it-gets-its-paws-in/ https://hackaday.com/2023/04/02/spy-on-your-cat-to-make-sure... His exercise routine is somewhat variable but he usually goes for a short jog a few dozen times a day. Most often at 5 am, for whatever reason. Since the article I also built and hooked up a treat dispenser for extra motivation.
- cure_42 2mo agoHave you seen evidence he understands that running causes treats to be dispensed and is running more as a result?
- SyzygyRhythm 2mo agoAlways hard to be sure, but I think so, yes. The dispenser is only triggered when he runs either fast enough or long enough (I forget the thresholds, but it's something like 10 mph or 10 seconds). Sometimes he'll run and not quite trigger the threshold, but wait next to the dispenser for the treat to come out. When it doesn't, he'll go back to the wheel and run/walk for a much longer period.
- noisy_boy 2mo ago> Most often at 5 am, for whatever reason. Poo time?
- otherme123 2mo ago> Most often at 5 am, for whatever reason. Cats are crepuscular animals. They are "programed" do start at 5 AM, hunt, and go back to sleep until afternoon. Living in homes tweaked them a little, but the 5 AM thing is still strong in a lot of them (mine included). https://www.animalhumanesociety.org/resource/cat-keeping-you-awake-how-manage-night-activity https://www.animalhumanesociety.org/resource/cat-keeping-you...
- artisinal 2mo ago
- etrautmann 2mo agoIf you look at any neuroscience paper, mice will run 10k a day or more on a wheel overnight. I thought the axis labels were wrong when I first saw that type of study. It’s quite common.
- mkagenius 2mo ago10k steps is a lot for me too.
- gandalfgreybeer 2mo ago10k for a hamster will be way more than 10k steps too!
- embedding-shape 2mo agoTo be fair, root comment only says "mice will run 10k a day" but it isn't 100% clear what that 10K actually refers to, could be steps, could be meters.
- Thurys 2mo agoMy physics teacher always assumed it was potatoes when the SI-unit was missing
- speedgoose 2mo agoIn the running context, a 10K means 10 kilometres.
- deleted 2mo ago[deleted]
- embedding-shape 2mo agoThat's awfully European of you, what if the mice are from the US?
- zdw 2mo agoDupe of link to original post on reddit: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49216926 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49216926
- WhyNotHugo 2mo ago> Over one seven-day stretch, he started within the same 10-minute window on five nights, between 9:54 and 10:04 p.m. I wonder if this correlates with Thijs's bedtime schedule, or if the hamster really is that precise. We feed the cat at home at the same time every day, and her internal clock definitely know when it's time less than 30' divergence. She suffers the daylight transitions immensely too because of this.
- e28eta 2mo agoEvery year when DST transitions out, I say “next time we should move the cats’ dinner time gradually leading up to it”, but never remember. I now have reminders for the 5 days leading up to move it later by 10 minutes a day. I don’t know if it will actually make a difference
- dlenski 2mo agoThis is amazing and I love it. I was surprised that the owner said he needed to get a Strava premium account in order to be able to auto-upload the hamster's activities. Not 100% sure why. He might be able to use https://github.com/dlenski/stravacli https://github.com/dlenski/stravacli (written by me) or the library it's based on (https://github.com/stravalib/stravalib https://github.com/stravalib/stravalib) to avoid this requirement and save a few bucks.
- interludead 2mo agoThat would be pretty funny if the hamster ended up with Premium purely because of an implementation detail
- tonyedgecombe 2mo agoWe are all hamsters on Strava.
- interludead 2mo agoThe only difference is the hamster doesn’t pretend the morning run was enjoyable
- speedgoose 2mo agoMany runners do enjoy running. Like every sport, it’s not for everyone. If you don’t enjoy running you don’t have to do it. I personally find the easy runs relaxing for the brain, and not taxing on the body, and the hard runs are quite fun.
- elzbardico 2mo agoMost sports have a habituation threshold you need to overcome so it becomes an enjoyable habit. Running is probably one the steepest imho.
- anal_reactor 2mo agoGym is the steepest. Three years in and I still hate it.
- rgoulter 2mo agoEach to their own, but I think free weights is the easiest activity where you get to feel tangible progress from doing it. You move weight around, later you move the same around a bit more (yay!), or move a heavier weigh around (yay!). You get to really know what your body is capable of.
- walrus01 2mo agoI wonder if one could calculate the watt-hours produced in a day by a theoretical 100 hamsters on generator-attached wheels, and if you could run a laptop and LTE hotspot from that (or similar load).
- mjanx123 2mo agoAn infinite number of hamsters running in an infinite number of hamster wheels could power a datacenter for one day.
- micw 2mo agoNo, they would collapse into a singularity with an infinite event horizon that eats up the universe at the speed of light
- Tepix 2mo agoAn infinite number of data centers even!
- HPsquared 2mo agoA smaller infinity, but still infinite.
- embedding-shape 2mo agoMake the data center run ML/AI experiments for how to effectively run a "energy generation hamster farm" and you have a completely grid-and-internet independent energy solution that optimizes itself via hamsters over time.
- walrus01 2mo agoNow the real interesting part would be if people can find a way for their hamster on strava to leak the locations of not-publicized military activities. https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=strava+leak+military+sites https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=strava+le...
- deleted 2mo ago[deleted]
- hiworld6543 2mo agoDude named his hamster Mollie, but refers to it by “his” and “he.” Must be Dutch humor.
- songhonglei1985 2mo ago[flagged]
- interludead 2mo ago> my hamster now has Strava Premium Somewhere there's a product manager looking at this and adding "multi-species household plan" to the roadmap
- nicc047 2mo agoLet the user choose between "run", "bike", "swim" and "ferris wheel"
- freetime2 2mo agoI love this. I feel like there’s a business and/or product line here if it doesn’t already exist (hamster habitats with integrated cameras).
- MBCook 2mo agoIt does! Sort of. The company Niteangel sells a pedometer for their hamster wheels. It doesn’t provide times or speeds, but it does give you the number of revolutions per night. I have thought it would be interesting to hook something up to be able to get the times and speeds. It never occurred to me that you could use something like Strava to record it.
- hi_hi 2mo agoAlso built a bike computer for my daughter using an esp32, reed switch and magnet. As we had recently watched Back To The Future, when she reached 8.8 mph it would play a brief snippet of appropriate music!
- schaefer 2mo agoThat’s amazing, nice work Dad. Do you also play the approach music when her power output reaches 1.21 Gigawatts?
- jagged-chisel 2mo agoShould probably scale it appropriately like the speed
- goodmythical 2mo ago1.21 hundredwatts?
- Symbiote 2mo ago1.21 hectowatts.
- GreenLightGo 2mo agoI’m not surprised. If my hamster isn’t sleeping, he’s running on his wheel. I’m starting to think he’s having an existential crisis...
- kQq9oHeAz6wLLS 2mo agoBipolar
- bartlomein 2mo ago[dead]
- keitmo 2mo ago“eat-sleep-run-repeat" -- relatable.
- HSO 2mo agothats roughly the equivalent of a marathon (or a bit under) a day for a human
- brightbeige 2mo agoReminds me of Nobel and Ignobel prize winner Andrei Geim, who authorer a paper with his hamster, H.A.M.S. ter Tisha. As I remember, he added Mr/Ms Tisha to be able to write “we” instead of “I”. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0921452600007535 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S09214...
- tough 2mo agoI thought in papers the majestic we was just a given even for solo writers I guess depends on the OCD of one if thats acceptable
- deleted 2mo ago[deleted]
- mhb 2mo agoGonna want this in steps.
- hndbwksam7 2mo agoDepends on the situation imo
- deleted 2mo ago[deleted]
- amelius 2mo agoWould a hamster run this much naturally? Or is the running because of the boredom of captivity? TikTok for hamsters?
- edhan235 2mo agoVarious people have tracked their pet's movements, and that's genuinely a really good thing to do to understand whether they're getting enough activity. But to Strava it and create competition among pet owners, very interesting.
- zem 2mo agothe hamster averaged over 10km/night!! given the size of the animal I would not have imagined anywhere near that.
- deleted 2mo ago[deleted]