Cats:

The cat is a small carnivorous mammal. It is the only domesticated species in the family Felidae and often referred to as the domestic cat to distinguish it from wild members of the family. The cat is either a house cat, kept as a pet, or a feral cat, freely ranging and avoiding human contact.

Range of motions

Limps: The cat joints are a modified ball-and socket joint. It is capable of flexion, extension, abduction, adduction, internal rotation, external rotation, and circumduction. Its primary motion, however, is flexion and extension.

 

Flexion-extension of the shoulder: (A) Zero starting position. (B) Flexion is measured in degrees away from the zero starting position (A-B).

Entire body:

1. The jump is starting; hind legs push the ground back.
2. As the hind legs recede, the forelegs go forward.
3. When legs push the ground, the part of body they’re attached to stays on default level. The other one can go up.
4. Notice that the hind legs’ bones never make a straight line, even when fully expanded.
5. No leg on the ground, body fully expanded.
6. Forelegs are preparing to land as far as possible.
7. Landing done; hind legs will try now to land in the same point.
8. The tail’s root direction is based on the hip’s pose.
9. When all the paws are on the ground, front and rear stay at the same level.

Cats use different strategies to hunt their prey like sneaking or pouncing.

Stalk-and-pounce method: Once the prey is located, the cat quickly moves closer in a low to the ground pose, and then stops and freezes sometimes for endless moments while watching the prey. If the target moves farther away, the cat adjusts by ever-so-slowly creeping forward one paw-step at a time, even freezing with a foot in mid-air to avoid revealing herself. For the final rush, she gathers rear legs beneath her and treads in preparation for for a forward thrusting take-off. It may require several darting leaps before she’s near enough for the final pounce.

 

Cat righting reflex: is a cat’s innate ability to orient itself as it falls in order to land on its feet.

After determining down from up visually or with their vestibular apparatus (in the inner ear), cats manage to twist themselves to face downward without ever changing their net angular momentum. They are able to accomplish this with these key steps:

1. Bend in the middle so that the front half of their body rotates about a different axis from the rear half.
2. Tuck their front legs in to reduce the moment of inertia of the front half of their body and extend their rear legs to increase the moment of inertia of the rear half of their body so that they can rotate their front further (as much as 90°) while the rear half rotates in the opposite direction less (as little as 10°).
3. Extend their front legs and tuck their rear legs so that they can rotate their rear half further while their front half rotates in the opposite direction less.

Depending on the cat’s flexibility and initial angular momentum, if any, the cat may need to perform steps two and three repeatedly in order to complete a full 180° rotation.

 

Materials we are looking to use:

Fur: resembles the fur of the cat

Reflective: reminds us of the eyes of the cats at night

Light and small: flea like, clustered in groups

 

Color palette: