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Robotics Toys Hardware Hacking Hardware

The Quintessential Sentry Gun 276

Posted by CowboyNeal from the deadly-secure dept.
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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The Quintessential Sentry Gun More

The Quintessential Sentry Gun

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  • what?... (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Now all we need is a shark and s victum^H^H^H^H^Htester.
    • Damn, someone is about to be very rich, I think.

  • 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."
  • All you'd need is the characteristic beeping. Now, instead of Counter-Strike scenarios for airsoft games, will we be seeing TFC scenarios too?

    I wonder if the gun they used is rapid firing (refrains from downloading movie in order to save them some bandwidth).

  • 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? ;)

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • Nerf maybe, I can see this a lawsuit waiting to happen.

    Hint hint . . [bbc.co.uk]

  • 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.

    • Regardless, it is still pretty impresive.

    • Re:awesome (Score:3, Insightful)

      by blackcoot ( 124938 )
      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)
    • What about using an infrared camera with the same motion algorithm? Seems to me that it would be pretty tricky to mask your heat signature while cruising through the jungle/desert/wherever you install this.
    • Actually it's doubly impressive because it was on Fark earlier and it withstood that too.

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

    by 0rionx ( 915503 ) 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.

    • My eyes, my eyes! (Score:2, Insightful)

      by modecx ( 130548 )
      Heck, tie it to the garden hose, can't get much more non-lethal than that... Unless it's 40 below in Minnesota or something. It'd be great for keeping the neighbor's cats from shitting in the garden, and it would also be great for Jehovah's Witnesses and people who listen to John Tesh.

    • Re:Just a hunch... (Score:3, Insightful)

      by E8086 ( 698978 )
      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.
      • Ok, I parsed that sentence into "just be sure to turn [the sign] off around mail time" and thought 'you sicko.' before reading the rest. sicko.

      • Re:Just a hunch... (Score:2, Insightful)

        by 0rionx ( 915503 )
        Although I can't say for sure, I'm told by a cop friend of mine that any kind of "unmanned, unattended" booby trap is considered illegal. Basically, anything that doesn't discriminate, but just fires away. If I'm not mistaken, I believe part of the reason for these laws is a result of people who have maimed or killed either themselves or a family member with their homemade traps. Additionally, if firefighters or police officers have to break into your home in an emergency, the last thing they want to hav
        • It's funny for the first 5min until you really think about it. It's kind of funny in concept and seeing that guy running away in pain because he didn't have enough chest padding. The only useful use I can think of is if you own a painball capture the flag course. An automated turret could be mounted above/near the flag. Then you'd need some team beacons to avoid friendly fire and aid with aiming, RF/WiFi/Bluetooth/other. As for home "defence" it's no more useful than the Laptop Gun in Perfect Dark, useless
          • You'd be better off with a hidden cameras with montion sensor focused on the most likely points of entry. So when the police arrive you can give them a picture of the criminal instead of telling them to duck as you attempt to deactive your home-made "security system".

            The best CCTV security cameras detect motion to switch themselves on, then point the cameras at the motion, then make a noise. The noise makes the purp look to see what the noise is, and you get a nice full-face picture of the wannabe burgla

        • 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.
          • There should be a lot of experience with lately since Meth labs are often booby trapped.

          • Re:Just a hunch... (Score:3, Interesting)

            by vertinox ( 846076 )
            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
    • since booby-trapping of any kind is illegal in almost every state:

      Although the implementation as shown is an illegal booby-trap, that need not be the case. A little software work could add a feature for a human operator (security guard in a central location) to watch the video and nominate specific targets for shooting. (Probably if they had already disregarded intercom commands to back away from the door).

      Configurations like that would render it just another firearm operated by a human who holds the liab
    • Yeah, the airsoft version is just good enough to maybe put an eye out. OTOH, a magazine-fed version of a "bean-bag" gun could have been useful recently in New Orleans.

      Personally, I would favor a Benelli full-auto 12 gage with a detachable box magazine, since a GE mini-gun has far too high a rate of fire.

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

    by DoubleRing ( 908390 ) on Thursday September 22, 2005 @10:11PM (#13626803)
    Software tracked, mechanically aimed! Hax0r!!!!

  • "If we stand still it can't see us..." (Score:5, Interesting)

    by ecko3437 ( 802386 ) <esmith@halomessenger.org> on Thursday September 22, 2005 @10:11PM (#13626804) Homepage Journal
    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?

  • Buy your own (Score:2, Informative)

    by nick13245 ( 681899 )
    ThinkGeek sells an "office safe" version of this:
    http://www.thinkgeek.com/cubegoodies/toys/71bc/M/
  • quick...defend freedom and liberty now...GPL the source!

  • 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.
  • garden dwarfs.

    I'm all for Open Source Warfare!

  • 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.
    • 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.

      They might figure out they can use humans as giant batteries and farm us! Of course they'd need to figure out some way to keep our minds busy while they do this...

  • 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.

    • Europeans are quite a bloodthirsty lot, you should see our history.
    • Please don't confuse the English with Europeans. It's your "allies" who have the little problem with guns. Here on the continent you buy 'em in supermarkets and you don't need even have to declare ownership of a double barreled shotgun.

      Brits = raving gun phobiacs.
      Yanks = raving gun fetishists.
      Euros = hey, it's just a tool.
      • No, it's just the British media that have a problem with guns. I shoot, and hunt, and I'm as and can't fucking STAND the bullshit our government lets through. I'm incredibly British in nature, but have lived around the world enough that I understand the dire position Brits allow themselves to be in and I'm ashamed of my government, and my country.

        I must confess, in my place in France, I have a gun rack, with a variety of rifles and shotguns, all of which I bought locally, no license, nothing (admittedly i

  • 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.
    • and it can feature recognize Jehovah's Witnesses.

      SENTRY GUN (vocoder effect): Please put down your religious crusade. You have twenty seconds to comply.

      DICK JONES: I suggest you do as it says, Mr. Kinney.
    • I didn't download the video (feeling benevolent today), but that's pretty harsh, even if he was an annoying little brat. I shot myself with a $1.90 plastic airsoft at about 3' away. just to see what it felt like, and the answer was yes, it hurts like hell. It was a half an hour before the stinging stopped and I had a huge angry red welt for several days.

      On a completely unrelated note, if it works for airsoft there's no reason why it can't work with real bullets. Obvious safety and legal issues aside, I g
  • Now someone just needs to do this with a belt-fed M249, with a much wider base tripod (and shorter) so it will not fall over.

  • Damn the Combine (Score:3, Funny)

    by RealErmine ( 621439 ) <commerce.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.
  • a solution to all those alley cats in my backyard! I'd much prefer the sound of a machine gun to the sound of those cats fighting!

  • 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
  • the second movie.

    But that one ran out of ammo pretty quick and aliens killed all the humans.

  • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • What were their parents thinking giving the guy the name "Ezra Rasmussen"? That name is a hell of a mouthful to say...
  • This is a nice hack, but as a do-it-yourself sentry, well, it'll keep you very safe from intruders wearing bright white clothing. From the video, it looks like their software looks for the brightest region, and then aims at the center of that region.

    It's a cool hack.

    --Pat

  • 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.

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