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Automated Sentry Robots
jimbob5 writes "New Scientist reports that you can now buy your own automated Room Defender. 'Who would like this gift? Any child, or anyone who saw the director's cut of Aliens and dreamed of owning one of those automated sentries.'" The New Scientist gift guide looks pretty useful.
Once triggered, it issues a verbal warning then fires a warning shot (a foam disc).
.357 to the thing, rigs up a solenoid trigger-puller set up to activate when the "foam discs" are supposed to launch.
Oh yeah. I can see it now. How long before someone bolts their
Jehovah's witnesses might have something to worry about.
Mod down people who tell people how to mod in their sigs
I've wanted to build one of these things for years. However my goals were a little higher. Complete motion tracking camera/servo system, and it would have fired paintballs or airsoft BBs... Too bad I never thought of the downgrade to common toy as a great selling point. Guess I'm and engineer and not a businessman.
I want this! But I won't get it. We have a little one running around and I can see what would happen some early morning around 4am...
"Mommy, Daddy... I had a bad dream!"
"Exit the room or there will be... trouble!" (fires warning shots, 1/4 payload)
"AAAAARGGGGHHH!!!!! A MONSTER!!!!!" (flees, heavily pelted by nerf discs)
"You were warned! Have a good day and stay out of... trouble."
"ZZzzzzZZZzzZZZZZzzzZZZ" (mom & dad (in unison))
"Waaaaaaahhhhhh" (cries to sleep)
On second thought... that could make for some interesting Skinner experiments where we actually get to sleep for a whole night! Although the little one might not get to sleep at all, living in fear of the menacing turret monster. Hey maybe this could breed a new form of learned Tourette's Syndrome?? I mean what else is going to happen after being pelted by a nerf turret living in your parent's room for your whole childhood, until all you can do is swear randomly. (all the moderators with Tourette's are going to love this comment... can you imagine their reaction??? At least they won't be able to mod this down -- for a while)
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
All you have to do is train your dog to sit/stay obediently, then get him to take the shots for you until the ammo runs out. You're free to pillage the room unmolested after that.
Have it push around a vacuum cleaner while it's on patrol.
I have an earlier model. The biggest change is that instead of shooting discs, it howls and then poops on the carpet.
Bill Clinton: Pimp we can believe in. - The Shirt!!!
Ain't got nothin' on ED209.
I swear I've seen many, many other toys like this years ago. They seem to come into existance around the holiday season, do poorly and disapear only to reemerge years later.
eh
I sent that link to my gf. She has 3 cats, 2 young ones which torment an older one. The old one stays in its room most of the time while the 2 others come in to play mean. I suggested she puts one of these at the entrance to that cat's room to keep the bad ones out.
...and I want one just because it's cool
Trolling is a art,
This isn't impressive.
If it said anything about actually TRACKING the target, I'd be impressed.
As it is, it appears to be little more than a light sensor attatched to a rapid-fire nerf gun. i.e. Dumb-fire, no aiming.
If it says otherwise, I'd love to know... but I saw nothing to indicate that.
It activates like a motion detector, gives a verbal warning, and then shoots foam discs in your general direction.
I welcome our new...er, yeh whatever.
- Tekton
I was going to get one of these but then realized it wouldnt take long for wife wife to figure out how to disable it with an EMP grenade.
Who is General Failure, and why is he reading my hard disk?
....wouldn't be as fun as liberating my sister's room. I want a unilateral robot room liberator/democracy imposer.
The boss will never sneak in on me again, catching me watching pr0n during work hours.
I'm getting me one and modifying it so it shoots saw blades instead of foam disks. Ain't NOBODY getting near my stack of porn!
A treat to eat, in a puppet that's neat!
It's Team Fortress Classic/TF1.5 all over again.
Ahhhh, the memories.
Is the robot in Robocop that malfunctions and kills people when they do not "cease and decist"
i can't think of the damn quote someone help me!
Quote from the customer reviews:
:)
"Bedroom? Stuck it in me garden, and that pesky cat ain't come round no more!"
Phil, Harrogate
So now Phil doesn't have a cat in his garden, but he has to search in the bushes for the bullets and he likes that
Amazing.
Find a job you like and you will never work a day in your life.
Why all the bloat? Just give me Assault Mode!
Can you imagine an office full of these things. Hundreds of cubicles flinging nerf discs everywhere. That is until someone figures out how to use AOL CD's as ordinance.
Here it is, the new replacement for a sentury. Fully automated and ready to go...just plug it in, program it and its ready. Just watch out for glitches, 'cause if it is military then it may fire on friendlies....with real bullets.
Now that software can recognize body language, maybe turrets can figure out when you are about to kill something, and beat you do it...killing you. Such a great future we look forward to...puts most sci-fi novels to shame.
...that can really persuade people to go away .
sigs, as if you care.
Now if it'll only be able to save John Conner AND lower taxes...
IGB: More fun than eating oatmeal!
So what's unclear, but probable, is that the thing just sits pointing in one direction (presumably at the door), and just fires when the motion detector is triggered.
But what would be *awesome* is if the thing actually tracked the motion of the target. Although this kind of image processing/sensor power is not likely to be so affordable.
Maybe a 5-quadrant motion detector would work pretty sweet. Although it might be pretty slow.
Muerte
You are illegally parked on private property - You have 20 secodns to comply ...20 seconds later (maybe less)...
kakkakkakkakkakkakkakkakkakkakakkakka boom!
I want one of these, but I'm going to wait until a later version can track and aim at the target.
This, combined with the teleportation research we read about the other day, can only convice me that we will soon be overrun by zombies, imps and cacodemons, and that only sentry robots will protect us!
The perfect sig is a lot like silence, only louder
Does anyone know if the turrent rotates as it fires or does it always fire in the same direction?
Not that it really matters; the last time I checked, getting hit by a little foam disk wasn't much of a deterrent...
What happens when the super intelligent monkeys get their hands on these? Seriously people, we can defeat the monkeys and we can defeat the robots, but not at the same time!!!!!
She will likely have to defeat my current wife in combat first...
That's a great idea! We can oil them both up and broadcast it live. The first ever Slashdot Pay-Per-View.
BTW the first yahoo to make the "Broad-cast" pun gets a -1 mod.
Who is General Failure, and why is he reading my hard disk?
Reloading will get tiring if you shoot your wad everytime a person comes by. Warning shot mode is more useful imo since you only need to reload 1/4 people.
The sentry robot would be ideal. For example, if the Tibetans engaged in prayer with a picture of the Dalai Lama, the sentry robot could watch in the front yard. When it sees a Chinese beast moving ominously towards the Tibetan home, the robot signals the Tibetans within the abode. They then quickly disassemble and hide the picture of the Dalai Lama.
This solution is only a short-term solution. Long term, you must skill the Chinese beast.
For the uninformed, the Chinese use electric cattle prods to sodomize the vagina of Tibetan nuns.
I for one...
Take off every sig. For great justice.
Once triggered, it issues a verbal warning then fires a warning shot (a foam disc).
:-/
Warning shot implys that something comes next...like a Real shot??
Scarry
WoW: Scheod 70 orc warlock on Shadowmoon
Is it just co-incidence that the Blast Match fire starter (a particularly useless item of "survival" gear, at least here in the UK) which is number 8 in the NS gift guide hi-tech list, is available from Firebox? Ditto the Powerball.
Here's to you, browsing Slashdot all day.
:)
Great. A bunch of little illegitimate gadgets runnig around beeping Mommy, Daddy.
Busy aligning my non-linear thoughts.
Looks like their server zigged when it should have zagged.
So,
My parents had a flower bed that the neighbourhood cats used as their litter box.
Dad got fed up with that and built a little contraption.
He rigged up a booby trap with a wire and a clothes peg. When the cats tripped the wire the clothes peg pulled off and broke a circuit with a battery and one of those old style magnesium flashes that one used to have for cameras in the 70s.
So the cats would walk in there at night, with pupils dilated to the size of grapes and preparing to do their business.
And trip the wire and.... *flash*!!!
The wire got tripped a few times. Once per cat in the area I would presume. And then never again.
The Internet is full. Go Away!!!
Freeze the scene in which Cpl. Hicks sets up one of the Sentry guns with an amber-screened laptop, and you'll get an idea of James Cameron's fanatical attention to (convincing) detail - the sentry guns have all sort of settings for "Interrogation modes" "IFF (identify friend or foe)", and an expected target profile, "Soft, Hard, semi-hard." Very cool stuff, but the theatrical cut didn't suffer too badly without that and other scenes. Two of my favorite films, Die Hard and Aliens were long (2.25 hrs apiece), but felt much shorter because of excellent writing, directing and a smoothly flowing storyline.
The ant was pretty friendly, but the cricket would evidently get pretty nasty if you stayed in the area.
"Hey, what are you doing in here"
"GET OUT!"
Hacking a foam shooter into one of these would be pretty easy.
The sentry robot would be ideal. For example, if the Tibetans engaged in prayer with a picture of the Dalai Lama, the sentry robot could watch in the front yard. When it sees a Chinese beast moving ominously towards the Tibetan home, the robot signals the Tibetans within the abode. They then quickly disassemble and hide the picture of the Dalai Lama.
This solution is only a short-term solution. Long term, you must skill the Chinese beast.
For the uninformed, the Chinese use electric cattle prods to sodomize the vagina of Tibetan nuns.
Aim for the center of mass, not the eyes.
What a disappointment. For a minute they looked like frickin' lasers.
"Please vacate the room. You have 15 seconds to comply."
The CB App. What's your 20?
I really need one outside my office door to keep the boss from cutting into my quality time reading slashdot
Now where is my Cloak of Invisibility
if it actually aimed the disk, then I'd think about it... mostly to keep my year old son in line.
Any child, or anyone who saw the director's cut of Aliens and dreamed of owning one of those automated sentries.
... kidding. Actually, if memory serves, the only reason the sentries "failed" was because they ran out of ammo.
Yeah, because they worked out really well in the films...
my religion lies somewhere between buddhism and super monkey ball - pamphlet?
It shouldn't be too hard to get something that 'looks' like it's tracking an intruder. Stick 4 motion sensors on the front with a narrow beam and have a motor turn the turret to whichever sensor was tripped. It probably couldnt handle tracking a horde of aliens but it should be enough to convince a little brother to fear it.
D
The first, last, and only tech news site on the net
Check out the CMUCAM: CMUcam vision sensors.
It can be hooked to servos and automatically track objects, plus the CMUcam2 can control multiple servos, so you could have it be a sentry without having to do any wacky wiring or microprocessing.
Wow, you guys take domestic dispute to a whole new level of technology.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
when you read the title as "Automated Sexy Robots"
"They know what you wan't and will do it within a tolerance of 1 micron."
How I miss futurama.
Maybe this can help train dogs to stay off furniture, even when the humans aren't around.
--
make install -not war
The room defender is $19.99 here, as opposed to £19.99 from the British site.
I'm gonna get one of these and stick it in front of the cat door.... he he he....
A new web server!
Reminds me of the turrets in Half-Life. Actually this could be a great way to defend my computer space for the week after Half-Life 2 is out. I wouldn't have to stop playing, or even say "get out of here". Better gaming through robotics!
-- Home is where you eat your heart out.
I've just been waiting for the correct platform to mount a pair of SKS's with 30 round clips to...
Nothing says home defense like a heavily armed robot!!!
"Forget the dog... beware of the rifle toting robot!!!"
Oh yeah... Leave the doors unlocked, put up a few webcams... Profit!
Kenny P.
Visualize Whirled P.'s
Suppose this device fired a disc into an intruder's eye, and did some sort of damage. I wonder if that intruder could successfully bring a case against the property owner for booby trapping his/her property.
better for mom if she's progams it to fire on son if he leaves room before finishing home work.
Reminds me of these.
Oh yeah, I need one of these. But can you enable HEM on it?
"HEM? What the hell is HEM?"
Fit that bad boy out with a pair of cannon and articulate the legs so it can walk around and my perimeter security is up to date, man.
Java: the bastard demon spawn of C++ and Ada
I don't know about your boss, but that is a completely unacceptable solution in most of our cases.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
What this thing really needs is face recognition software so that only people who are authorized can enter safely.
Destroy him, my robots!
If I remember in Aliens the automated sentries had dual 50 caliber guns mounted on them. I've always wanted a few of these along with neet little signs showing a guy being shot a killed because you never know if the person wandering onto your property can read. *lol*
Nick Powers
Encryption: I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend your right to encrypt it...
What kind of geek crowd is this!?!?!
The movie opens with an armed home defense robot that went berserk.
Intelligent Life on Earth
To the day we won't need the poor.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
Am I the only one to whom the image of that thing gives flashbacks to some of the enemy vehicles from the Captain Power series/toys?
If you can't see the value in jet powered ants you should turn in your nerd card. - Dunbal (464142)
HADOKEN!
no
I never thought I would be writing in, but you wouldnt believe what happened at work the other day...
I recommend loading with cd-coasters.
Sharpen the edge for maximum amusement of the unexpecting.
till people hack it to do cooler stuff
See pictures of tits
First, this is F****** COOL!
I don't care if it doesn't track, for the price, it's pretty damned neat.
Second, I was rolling from all the funny as hell comments on this topic.
Combine the comments and get a squirrel destroying monster robot that sounds like RoboCop roaming your house and destroying anything that moves.
What a mental picture!
1f u c4n r34d th1s u r34lly n33d t0 g37 l41d Capitalization really works: i helped my uncle jack off a horse
try and get me with that and I'll get you with this Rata ta tat
------
insert sig here,here, and here
Who cares about if he disables himself, for the love of god, SWEET JESUS, DON'T SHOOT AT THE PR0N!
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
Did anyone else notice that this thing doesn't actually aim itself? Yeah... so it has a motion detector. It's stationary. All you have to do is walk around it while the "warning" is going off (not that I'm afraid of foam discs)...
He was the first yahoo to make the "Broad-cast" pun.
*ducks*
WE WANT A DANSDATA(TM) certified(TM) Review of this "toy" :D
It's so funny, it bears repeating: "Bedroom? Stuck it in me garden, and that pesky cat ain't come round no more!" Phil, Harrogate "Working in IT, there is an area in front of my desk now dubbed "the confessional" - now when people come to confess, they automatically get their penance dispensed :) Fantastic fun, and it also means I get support requests via e-mail instead of being disturbed :)"
Greg, Wellington
surely the Jehovah's witnesses can convert these machines to their party
as you can see these fellows can have a great force
Download Jehovah's witnesses comedy (divx)
=D
fly-swatting ? If so,then I want one too :)
can they be armed with a death ray and a bathroom plunger?
Purchase a roomba. Remove the roomba's top cover and drill a few holes. Now mount your sentury robot to the cover and put everything back in place. Set everything to automatic and watch your household fall into chaos! To take on the world, increase number of room-turies, and mount small wireles cameras on each unit so you dont even have to leave the living room to enjoy.
You are confusing me with someone who cares.
It's all great fun until SOMEONE LOSES AN EYE. Sorry, had to say it.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
If this thing fires at everything that moves, how do you turn it off? Approach it stealthily from the back, ninja style? Run in a circle around it to dodge its fire like a skulk?
Aliens was such a hardware movie - I wanted everything in it. Any movie that features Sigorney Weaver as a gun toting rambo with PMS also must be good.
http://park18.wakwak.com/~nmt/asgs/main.htm