DIY: Distance Logging Via GPS Dog Collar

Dear Internet, I freakin’ love you!  Through you I find fascinating people, learn cool things, and find neato-keen projects.  This geeky, crafty, cool dog collar has all three things going for it.  Yea!

Check out this nifty DIY dog collar project.  You get to solder AND sew!  Please note:  This collar is not for finding your lost dog because the collar doesn’t have a transmitter.  It is meant to track you & your dog’s progress & distance on walks.  You can map your walks or if you have a large property you can see where your dog spends her time by downloading the GPS data from her collar at the end of the day.

Here are the supplies and tools you’ll need.  Ladyada also has detailed information on the code & wiring used in the project.  And there’s a pdf of all the tutorial.  When you purchase from Adafruit Industries you help support open-source hardware.

The tutorial is by Limor Fried aka ladyada.  Limor is an MIT educated electrical engineer and owner of Adafruit Industries, supplier of parts & designer of kits for DIY electronics projects.  She’s an big advocate for open-source hardware.

Her user-name, ladyada, is a reference to Lady Ada Lovelace, a super cool woman in her own right.  Ada Lovelace was a mathematician, writer & translator in the mid 1800’s.  She’s widely attributed with writing the first “computer program”.  Awesome stuff!