Chonk-o-matic

Software

You can find an ESPHome project and a detailed description of the software/electronics side of the build in the chonk-o-matic GitHub repository.

Sensor

It occurred to me that an ultrasonic distance detector might bother my pets, so I reverted to an IR-based sensor. It's a little more expensive and massive overkill, which makes it the perfect fit for this project. So next, I modified the food hoper (but not the spelling) to accommodate the different sensor.

Shaft

In the original project, I couldn't work out how the screw could ever be tight enough to keep the shaft from spinning. To fix this, I modified the original to fit perfectly with a standard servo horn.

Plugs

I found the slop plugs would just fall straight through the slot, so I added a lip. This could be refined further, but it hit the "good enough" bar.

Stand

Finally, I added a stand because the bowl I wanted to use was too tall. You could adjust the height of this stand in your slicer to accommodate the exact bowl size.

Thanks

Thanks to @slavikkopanov for the original model!