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The Quintessential Sentry Gun

Posted by CowboyNeal on Thu Sep 22, 2005 09:53 PM
from the deadly-secure dept.
Robotics Toys Hardware Hacking Hardware
mollyhackit writes "Aaron and Ezra built an automatic sentry gun using an airsoft gun, some hobby servos and a webcam.The camera automatically identifies and tracks targets. They tested it on each other to make sure it worked; video included!"
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  • Cubicle Defense Mechanism (Score:5, Funny)

    by No Salvation (914727) on Thursday September 22 2005, @09:57PM (#13626744) Homepage Journal
    I doubt there is a single person here who didn't think, "hmmm I could use one of these in my cubicle."
    • Thinkgeek offers one that shoots foam discs.

      I prefer to put more of a hurting on the marketing weasels though. Explaining the tiger pit to management was a bit of a challenge, though...
    • I doubt there is a single person here who didn't think, "hmmm I could use one of these in my cubicle."

      Just those of us without cubicles. I was thinking more along the lines of, "hmmm, I could use one of these , but with a taser gun, mounted on the roof of my vehicle to shoot small animals that want to put paw prints all over it." Then I was thinking, "hmmm, I wonder if anyone from PETA is going to read this post."

        • Re:Cubicle Defense Mechanism (Score:5, Funny)

          by Pharmboy (216950) on Friday September 23 2005, @07:16AM (#13628230) Journal
          I was thinking the whole paintball thing as well. Just like Team Fortress Classic (which I still love and play). This would add some serious fun to paintball matches, with each team getting one SG, playing Capture the Flag, and a hit means you sit out for 5 minutes. Literally TFC in the real world. Man, where do I sign up?

          Now if someone could built a device that would let me actually rocket jump. And survive. ;)

  • Where's the Dispenser (Score:5, Funny)

    by jtwJGuevara (749094) on Thursday September 22 2005, @09:59PM (#13626755)
    And my engy script for "bind e +detdispenser"

  • Just because Slashdot is now CSS... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by bc90021 (43730) * <bc90021@@@bc90021...net> on Thursday September 22 2005, @10:00PM (#13626758) Homepage
    ...doesn't mean that everyone's bandwidth is going to be less. What's with linking a video in the story? Sadism? ;)

    • Nope, this was on Hackaday [hackaday.com] earlier today, which is a slightly less frequented site than Slashdot. By the way, if you want your karma to go through the roof, just visit Hackaday occasionally and then submit the story here. I've been seeing quite a bit of redundancy lately!

  • Needs one more thing (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 22 2005, @10:00PM (#13626759)
    Hook it up to facial recognition software, put it on a mobile chasis, and then you've got something.

    • Re:Needs one more thing (Score:5, Funny)

      by superpulpsicle (533373) on Thursday September 22 2005, @11:11PM (#13626996)
      Homeowner: He's a criminal I swear.

      Police: Looks like a dead mailman to me.

      Homeowner: Radar must have seen those free aol CDs.

      Police: You shot him with 1 million bbs.

      Homeowner: I didn't. Sentry did. Bad firmware. Bad!

    • Re:Needs one more thing (Score:5, Funny)

      by Frogbert (589961) <[moc.liamg] [ta] [trebgorf]> on Friday September 23 2005, @12:49AM (#13627288)
      Hook it up to facial recognition software, put it on a mobile chasis, and then you've got something.
      Yeah and perhaps some sort of powerful shield, and replace the gun with some sort of Sharkbrand(tm) Laser and add a speaker that barks "exterminate" or something. We could call it a doorleck or darlink, I don't know I'll let marketing figure it out.

  • Little brothers ARE good for something! (Score:5, Funny)

    by imunfair (877689) on Thursday September 22 2005, @10:01PM (#13626766) Homepage
    I love how he used his little brother to test it.

    "Just go stand out there in front of my sentry gun so I can see if it works"

    At least he was nice enough to have him wear a paintball mask, some brothers wouldnt be nearly so kind. :)

    • Re:Little brothers ARE good for something! (Score:5, Funny)

      by BrynM (217883) * on Thursday September 22 2005, @10:14PM (#13626813) Homepage Journal
      I love how he used his little brother to test it.
      I was thinking of how many little brothers will know genuine fear after seeing the video while I was watching it. Being a big brother, I lauged my ass off as soon as the gun started firing. I suddenly wonder what my little sister is up to...
    • Yeah. First rule of hacking: deal with dangerous objects safely, e.g. if you are making nitroglycerine, you do it in an ice bath.

      I'm not sure that this meets the standard though. The paintball mask isn't designed to stop a BB, although it probably will if its from a low velocity gun. According to the specs for this gun, the muzzle velocity is 200-280 fps. This is fairly low, but since the paintball mask isn't really designed for this, I think it's unnecessarily risky. They should have used a low veloci

      • Re:Little brothers ARE good for something! (Score:5, Informative)

        by Kyaphas (30519) on Friday September 23 2005, @08:48AM (#13628622)
        It's an airsoft gun. The bb's are 6mm plastic. Much less inertia and penetration capability. Not that he doesn't still need a mask, but they're not as powerful as your run-of-the-mill 4.5mm steel bb's.
      • Close, but not quite. 1) Paintballs are normally fired in the 300 fps range. 2) despite what the summary says, this thing is an airsoft gun; it fires airsoft pellets, not BBs. Airsoft pellets are light plastic, BBs are a significantly denser metal.

        Also, no such thing as a low velocity paintball gun. The speed of a paintball is handled through flow an adjustable air flow regulation on the gun. The speed of a fired ball is checked on a chronograph, and the air flow of the paintball gun is adjusted to mak

  • Just freakin' perfect. (Score:5, Funny)

    by Talinom (243100) * on Thursday September 22 2005, @10:05PM (#13626781) Homepage Journal
    Now that we know what am aimbot looks like can I buy some PunkBuster clothing now?

  • The nerds are wall to wall down there (Score:3, Funny)

    by millisa (151093) on Thursday September 22 2005, @10:05PM (#13626783)
    Guns A and B. Tracking and firing on multiple targets.

    They must be wall to wall in there. Look at those ammo counters go. It's a shooting gallery down there.

    B gun's dry. Twenty on A. Ten. Five. That's it.

    They're at the fire door.

    Man, listen to that.

    Twenty meters and closing. Fifteen. C and D guns down about fifty percent.

    How many?

    Can't tell. Lots. D gun's down to twenty. Ten. It's out.

    They retreated. The guns stopped them.

    Yeah. But look...

    Newt time then can walk right up and knock.

    But they don't know that. They're probably looking for other ways to get in. That'll take them awhile.

  • awesome (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Madd Scientist (894040) on Thursday September 22 2005, @10:07PM (#13626790)
    wow, one of the first times i've clicked a "video included" link that actually worked. nice server.

    their image processing is pretty much perfect, so i'm assuming they took some liberties such as assuming the target is wearing a bright white shirt. show me this thing firing on someone in camo.

    • you don't need white to be the cue. i've seen similar things which cue off motion alone, in which case the camouflage won't help you (other moving things could, however, confuse it). in fact, cueing off motion alone makes things quite a bit easier --- no need to track (pick out the biggest blob of foreground pixels, aim at the middle, fire)

  • Just a hunch... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by 0rionx (915503) <.moc.liamg. .ta. .20elbakramer.> on Thursday September 22 2005, @10:10PM (#13626802)
    I'm guessing that here in the U.S. you probably wouldn't be able to get away with keeping one of those in your home or business, since booby-trapping of any kind is illegal in almost every state: http://dictionary.law.com/default2.asp?selected=87 [law.com] On the other hand, usually one is only held liable for injuries caused by a booby trap on one's property, so I suppose with some modification this could make for a nice non-dangerous way to deter burglars and such.
    • Is it still considered booby-trapping if you put up a "trespassers will be shot" sign? Just be sure to turn it off around mail time, don't want to hit the USPS/UPS/FedEX/DHL person delivering your new hdd or motherboard or notification of lawsuit from the person you hit the day before.

        • Re:Just a hunch... (Score:5, Interesting)

          by ari_j (90255) on Friday September 23 2005, @01:15AM (#13627356)
          Don't listen to cop friends about the law - cops know how to police, not how to answer legal questions. That said, this one got it right. And it's not just due to injuring yourself, but because it is indiscriminate in who it shoots. The law tends to refer to "spring guns" as they were usually set up using a string, a spring, and a gun pointed at a window or a gate. What happened too often were situations where you set it up to catch a burglar, but some kid loses his baseball in your yard and gets his leg blown off.

          Somewhere in this thread, someone asked about a "Trespassers Will Be Shot" sign. While such a sign is a nice warning, you still have to do the shooting, yourself. An indiscriminate shooting machine is not acceptable, because not all entries of your property that you didn't personally authorize are truly trespassing - the kid with the baseball is questionable as to necessity to retrieve his property, but it could be grandma, the police, a lost Jesuit, or your wife.

          There has to be a human conscience that decides whether or not to pull the trigger. Now, if you added face-recognition software, you could make the argument that it is not indiscriminate in what it shoots at, but I think that the law would be very reluctant to agree with you and you'd mostly be making that argument to Bubba to try to confuse him enough that he loses his erection.
          • While such a sign is a nice warning, you still have to do the shooting, yourself. An indiscriminate shooting machine is not acceptable, because not all entries of your property that you didn't personally authorize are truly trespassing

            What about a machine that warns you that it is about to fire? Fires a warning shoot and then explains you have 60 seconds to vacate the property.

            In truth indiscriminate shooting weapons would be military applications in which it didn't matter who you killed. Like those special

  • It's a true aimbot (Score:4, Funny)

    by DoubleRing (908390) on Thursday September 22 2005, @10:11PM (#13626803)
    Software tracked, mechanically aimed! Hax0r!!!!
  • This is awesome. I am already excited at the idea of building several of these and having a large scale airsoft battle in my woods behind my house over several acres.

    Though, I wonder how well it tracks for people who aren't wearing white ;) If I'm wearing camo or something and I'm out in the woods, will it pick me up? If I'm wearing a green shirt and its out on my lawn will it still target me or maybe just my pants?

  • About time (Score:3, Interesting)

    by the pickle (261584) on Thursday September 22 2005, @10:26PM (#13626858) Homepage
    About time that technology caught up with the Janus Syndicate [wikipedia.org]. *turns around and hits the power button on the N64*...

    p

  • you'll shoot your eye out (Score:5, Funny)

    by E8086 (698978) on Thursday September 22 2005, @10:31PM (#13626872)
    It's all fun and games until someone gets shot in the eye, about 50 times if it empties the magazine on you. Then it's even funnier to everyone else if you get it on camera.

  • Now what would be cool... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by scovetta (632629) on Thursday September 22 2005, @10:49PM (#13626934) Homepage
    Colleges have that robo-cup competition. I think they could get a little more advanced with something like this. Each team has a bunch (maybe 10) autonomous vehicles that have a webcam, paintball gun, laptop, battery, etc. Capture the flags, robot-style.

    I'd tune it to watch that on TV. Until the robots get smarter and take over the world. We wouldn't have a chance. Until their batteries died, at least.

  • Second Amendment meta-discussion (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 22 2005, @10:55PM (#13626950)
    Let's just summarize the inevitable right-to-bear-arms discussion here and get it over with, shall we?

    First, somebody will suggest how cool this would be with real guns; then a European will wring their hands at how any sane person could have the notion of automatically shooting other people or even possessing such things at all; an American will call the European a socialistic pansy; another American will call the first American a rabid, foaming gun-nut who should be put in a concentration camp with the other bad people; and finally links to statistics will be posted, proving that guns are both the cause of and solution to violent crime, in addition to being psychosis-inducing penis substitutes which should be carefully controlled for the children.

  • lame... (Score:3, Funny)

    by NotAnotherReboot (262125) on Thursday September 22 2005, @10:56PM (#13626955)
    Lame...it hasn't even been upgraded to a level 3 with a rocket launcher attached.

  • Some things money can't buy... (Score:5, Funny)

    by jpellino (202698) on Thursday September 22 2005, @10:57PM (#13626959)
    Lazy susan bearing - $3 at Big Lots.
    Raggedy PIII to run the controllers - $50 on eBay.
    Video of your little brother running like a frightened baby bunny while being peppered with BBs for all the world to see on the internet - Priceless.

    Call me when they swap in the paintball rig and it can feature recognize Jehovah's Witnesses.

  • Damn the Combine (Score:3, Funny)

    by RealErmine (621439) <`commerce' `at' `wordhole.net'> on Thursday September 22 2005, @11:03PM (#13626982)
    Anyone else notice that, at least in the first trial on the video, it even sounds almost the same as the sentry guns in HL2? Very cool work.

  • Finally!!! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Wazukkithemaster (826055) on Thursday September 22 2005, @11:06PM (#13626986)
    Something useful on Slashdot :)

    P.S. was that friggin night vision on the last test shot?

    "It had him when he was in the shadows too..."

    "AHHHH!!!!"

    Lets break that down for you guys...

    Step 1)Robots.
    Step 2)Add Airsoft Guns.
    Step 3)Find Younger Siblings
    Step 4)... (explicative deleted)
    Step 5)Profit!!!

    Brilliant... *golf claps like an excited little school girl*

  • Weekend off thanks to /.! (Score:5, Funny)

    by BBrown (70466) on Thursday September 22 2005, @11:37PM (#13627063)
    Cheers to my roommate for finally getting his turret some accolade!

    Unfortunately, he had the poor foresight to host it on the main computer science server here.

    So, thanks /., for giving me the weekend off. I won't be doing any coding once this gets popular. ;)

  • What a wonderful device for farmers! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by t0qer (230538) on Friday September 23 2005, @12:16AM (#13627181) Homepage Journal
    I grew up on several orchards as a kid. We were pretty much encouraged to wander the cherry, prune orchards from the age of 6 and shoot anything that moves.

    There's other devices for scaring off varmints. Natural predators like hawks, percussion guns, dogs, sprinkler systems connected to motion detectors, but nothing quite as eleborate and precise as this.

    The only downside I see it that the BB's aren't biodegradable, but why do they have to be made out of plastic? Perhaps a system that delivers fertalizer pellets and or water. That way you would be scaring off birds as well giving the plants nutrients.

    This may have been a crazy tangent of a post, but I'm just throwing out a possible commercial app for this if folks are looking for it.

    • Re:What a wonderful device for farmers! (Score:4, Funny)

      by Belseth (835595) on Friday September 23 2005, @01:25AM (#13627379)
      Postman gets shot by pellets. Back at the post office the nitrates in the fertilizer sets off bomb detectors. Postman desperately tries to explain about a farmer shooting him with fertilizer pellets during the cavity search. The 300lb security guard for some reason doesn't believe his. Homeland Security declares victory in war against terror and sends the Postman to Gitmo where's he's forced to convert to Islam and winds up being deported to Iraq. On the bright side the farm is looking really green this year.
    • We can't use fertilizer pellets because of how delicate these "toys" are built. The bb is fired with an compress air suction system based on a motor turning gears; which in turn run a piston back, and releasing that piston on a spring to the nozzle to fire.

      Anything that's not soild and hard will get deformed or sucked into the cylinder and mess up your gun. And don't start the "hey but there are paintball airsoft gun" thing. They break faster.

      There are biodegradable bb as siblings suggests. But on

  • Already have auto-sentries (Score:3, Interesting)

    by HangingChad (677530) on Friday September 23 2005, @08:36AM (#13628535) Homepage
    Self-replicating, self-repairing, independent targeting capability, alert and attack modes, built in night vision system, able to navigate complicated terrain features and function in any weather.

    A rottweiler named Jaws and a Belgium Shepherd.

      • CTRL-H Defined (Score:4, Informative)

        by WidescreenFreak (830043) on Thursday September 22 2005, @10:46PM (#13626929) Homepage Journal
        CTRL-H is the UNIX-standard control code for a backspace. It's used in this case for humorous effect or sarcasm.

        Example: He is stupid^H^H^H^H^H^Hcool --> "He is cool", but that's not what you originally typed, hence the humor or sarcasm.

        UNIX 101 is over for today. Class dismissed.

        • Re:CTRL-H Defined (Score:5, Informative)

          by StikyPad (445176) on Thursday September 22 2005, @11:39PM (#13627073) Homepage
          Right, but the "joke" originates from actual incidents of old terminal programs storing the ^H rather than erasing the previous character. Occasionally, BBSes would have backspace set to something other than ^H. When someone would post a message, and they sent the ^H sig, their own terminals echoed a backspace, but the remote BBS simply logged the ^H as part of their post.

      • Re:The Army will be all over this (Score:5, Interesting)

        by The Evil Couch (621105) on Friday September 23 2005, @02:18AM (#13627534) Homepage
        I can't speak for every piece of the Army, but I know we have remote controled machineguns in various calibers. best I know of is a .50 cal that gets mounted to the top of a HMMWV, so that the gunner doesn't have to expose himself to enemy fire at all, that I saw while I was in Iraq. he just sits inside looking at a monitor and controling it with a joystick. I kind of wish I had had one, but we only had the one for our battalion, so I had to shoot threats the old fashioned way.

        I remember reading on some (public, unclassified) site that we have at least prototypes of remote controled robots with various calibers of automatic weapons, ranging from 9mm to 7.62mm.

        I don't think the Army's that interested in completely automated systems, but remote controlled turrets is something Uncle Sam would dig.

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