Addressing a Need for My Senior Cats

In 2023 I realized my cats were old. My orange cat Simon was about 16 years old and had been taking arthritis medication for some time. Our long-haired black cat Zoey had just become a teenager and was a little less spry than she used to be, and she always had stomach problems.

After staying with my BattleBots team captain Bunny for RoboGames in April of that year, I noticed her cats had angled feeding dishes. I asked how they were, as I had been eyeing them for some time but it seemed a little gimmicky. Her cats’ digestive issues had improved dramatically since getting these bowls. We already had a wealth of stainless steel bowls, and I didn’t want to replace them with expensive $20+ individual bowls, so I decided to make some and utilize Send Cut Send to save some money.

This was one of my first sheet metal projects in SOLIDWORKS — I hadn’t done much outside of a few sample exercises and training courses. I learned quite a lot about PDM in the process, too!

I created the files, which are available here. In the process of creating this, I realized that my DXF for the top plate was out-of-date, and I had to create a workaround! I 3D printed some shims to go between the outdated DXF, and this gave me clearance to manually bend the parts after I received them from Send Cut Send.

I had the service do the bending, and I painted them at home where they remain in daily use to this day.