Slashdot Mirror
The Quintessential Sentry Gun
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!"
Now all we need is a shark and s victum^H^H^H^H^Htester.
I feel sorry for the server. 8MB video file linked in the article description.
I doubt there is a single person here who didn't think, "hmmm I could use one of these in my cubicle."
I'm agneglectic, too lazy to care if there is a God.
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).
Before you die, you see DoubleRing...
And my engy script for "bind e +detdispenser"
...doesn't mean that everyone's bandwidth is going to be less. What's with linking a video in the story? Sadism? ;)
libertarianswag.com
Hook it up to facial recognition software, put it on a mobile chasis, and then you've got something.
How about:
:)
- a Linux implementation, with OpenGL?
- a beowulf cluster of these
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
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.
Now that we know what am aimbot looks like can I buy some PunkBuster clothing now?
"Giving money and power to governments is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys." - P.J. O'Rourke
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 . .
Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
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.
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
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.
The Slashdot Limerick
Software tracked, mechanically aimed! Hax0r!!!!
Before you die, you see DoubleRing...
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.
;) 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?
Though, I wonder how well it tracks for people who aren't wearing white
-Eric Smith
So, what the hell is this "^H^H^H^H^H"? Is that the sound of Zonk blowing all the other "editors" at a staff meeting?
excellent way for these fine geeks to repel icky women from their lairs..............
ThinkGeek sells an "office safe" version of this:
http://www.thinkgeek.com/cubegoodies/toys/71bc/M/
I'll give you one guess as to where the link in the story summary takes you. Ya know, most true stories are reported elsewhere first. Otherwise, we'd just have to make up stuff to submit, and hope that turns out to be true.
I am not left-handed, either!
quick...defend freedom and liberty now...GPL the source!
Mongrel News all the news that fits and froths
I wouldn't want to live in a world with an anit-computer-aimed-airsot-booby-trap law.
I am not a crackpot.
Umm DUHH it's linked to hackaday.
...is John Connor!
About time that technology caught up with the Janus Syndicate. *turns around and hits the power button on the N64*...
p
In Korea, long hair is for old people!
I, for one, welcome our new sentry gun wielding overlords
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.
F7 doesn't work, ignore spelling and grammar
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.
Constitutional rights may be respected, repealed, or modified; but they must never be ignored.
If you're in Asia use this link.
like ugly on an ape. Auto guns are effective though - I remember in Unreal, Half-Life and Duke Nukem 3D, auto guns were a pain in the ass to get by, and almost always killed you first time you met them.
Mumia Abu-Jamal is *laughably guilty*. Check the evidence.
garden dwarfs.
I'm all for Open Source Warfare!
http://smarthome.com/6120.html
I am not a crackpot.
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.
The Overrated mod is for reversing inappropriate, positive mods, not for voicing disagreement with a post.
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.
Wer mit Ungeheuern kämpft, mag zusehn, dass er nicht dabei zum Ungeheuer wird. --Nietzsche
Ahh lovely commenting i got for not clicking the link in the article. Since i had already read it yesterday my bad.
I gave the bat commader a high five.
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.
People might not get the reference otherwise.
The first rule of USENET is you do not talk about USENET.
Lame...it hasn't even been upgraded to a level 3 with a rocket launcher attached.
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.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
http://dan.mahonstudios.com/covertofcanton/insidep ages/images/gallerypics/ouch.jpg
This was on i-hacked earlier today, like in the morning.
ModLife.Net - If it ain't modded, what's the point?
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.
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.
Dewey, you fool! Your decimal system has played right into my hands!
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!
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*
Live according to the Categorical Imperative. If the Categorical Imperative tells you not to live by it... ignore it
Well, except for the part about Newt Time . . . I like newts.
Remember, if you bounce them 6 times, they give you a powerup!
Jardinains, baby!
Is is just me, or is Slashdot now incredibly slow?
Cheers to my roommate for finally getting his turret some accolade!
/., for giving me the weekend off. I won't be doing any coding once this gets popular. ;)
Unfortunately, he had the poor foresight to host it on the main computer science server here.
So, thanks
hackaday.com called...they want Wednesday's news back.
...another copied story from hackaday.
Please, someone, I beg you, finish out the day with a story about Beowulf clusters running MythTV, SETI and something about creation/evolution.
Use the torrent.
-- Odd Rune Strommen
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.
all dorks..
the second movie.
But that one ran out of ammo pretty quick and aliens killed all the humans.
I started by learning Microsoft's DirectShow technology and utilizing the OpenCV library according to the tutorial by R. Laganiere to access the pixels being sent by my web cam. If you try to use the tutorial, you'll have to use the new library paths for DirectX 9 because the ones in the tutorial are a little outdated.
Microsoft, the choice of terrorists everywhere. Born, raised and trained (if you call DirectX familiarization a training) right here in the USA.
Last summer was ... last month and M$ has already changed enough for you to need new libraries. Ugh.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Maybe Slashddot could just put a big link at the top of the page to the hack a day site instead of constantly ripping their stories?
http://www.hackaday.com/
Maurice W. Hilarius Voice: (778) 347-9907
All you have to do is keep track of the background, which doesn't change much. Then anything else is the person. Combine that with dead simple motion detection like Sum[change in pixel RGB]/npixels and you get much better recognition than shown on their pages. I've done this in Java for a door webcam where the image window pops up when somebody stands outside (which incidentally you'd never guess how many people just do random stuff like dance to their ipod outside of a generic numbered door). It's easy, and I was maxing out the webcam in terms of FPS (~26), decoding jpeg images, *and* being a proxy webcam http server since the webcam would bog down. The real story here is the computer-controlled turrets, not the recognition software.
They had stuff like this at the US Naval Academy when I was there for the summer seminar a couple of years ago. IIRC, it was infra-red as opposed to motion-tracking, and was mounted on remote-control/autonomous tank tread things. It was paintball instead of airsoft, but same idea. I understand they use them on plebes in the last phase of Sea Trials.
They also had a shoulder-mounted paintball gun that tracked with the suit's helmet and could be fired via a small remote that you hold in your hand, or hwatever. Nifty stuff.
Mirroring the video to relieve some of the server burden from the lone host providing access to this video.
http://www.youtube.com/?v=Ef9xk-kypEo
Friendly fire can be a real bummer.
This technology has been feasible for many many years for the Pentagon. Do you really think 2 guys with a $100 budget discovered something the Pentagon with hundreds of billions of research dollars missed?
Damn, someone is about to be very rich, I think.
Cool art gallery, if you're into that sort of thing.
...sounds like a mefi member. We don't take kindly to your kind 'round here. With your long, elaborate feats of wit and humor requiring knowledge of sociopolitiacal structures to identify the punchline. If you don't leave now, we will send you to soviet russia with a korean grandmother covered in hot grits.
What were their parents thinking giving the guy the name "Ezra Rasmussen"? That name is a hell of a mouthful to say...
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
It's a cool hack.
--Pat
that sounds a lot like they ripped off half of the Predator equipment 0.o
Which, if you think about it... is pretty cool.
That's why the worlds biggest and best arms manufacturers are all American, Glock, Steyr, Heckler and Koch, FN...
Have you ever even been to Europe? Why assume that all Europeans are socialistic pansies? I'm a brit, I go and watch cuddly little foxes get mauled to death by beagles, and I shoot at the poor little birdies with a 12 bore. Oh, and deer. If you cared to do your research, you'd realise that there's a large chunk of British (and European) population who have absolutely no problem with bearing arms, because there's not really a reason not to.
Sure, we have tighter gun control over here (for the most part - go to Kiev and you can pick up Kalashkinovs for about £15 - and then go shoot radioactive boars in the woods!), but it doesn't make all Europeans socialistic pansies.
The media over here tends to be just as reactionary as it it can be in the states - did you ever hear about Tony Martin & Brendan Fearon? Interesting case - the left wing, proletariat media villified Tony Martin, and managed to drag public opinion in such a direction that it led to the banning of bloodsports and the like in the country - merely by raising enough bile in people who have nothing better to do with their time than whinge and bitch about things they don't know or understand.
This has turned into more of a rant than I intended. Basically, democracy is inherently flawed - why should people who have no connection to hunting and the like be able to make any kind of a decision on the basis of whether it's right or wrong? Which brings me onto my next point - why are politicians allowed to make decisions that scientists should be making? Why are the public allowed to pressurise governments into banning scientific progress because they disagree with it because they don't understand it?!
Anyway, back to my point. Not all europeans are whining lefty bureaucrats - in fact, the majority aren't - it's just that the whining lefty 'crats always get into government, because unfortunately the proles will do whatever the media tells them to think, and Murdoch enjoys a left wing government, as it promotes further circulation of his 'Banner' (think fountainhead).
Ok, really rant over now.
Circular reasoning, you have.
I wonder... would it be possible to build an automatic insect-tracking sensor using an array of microphoness, that automatically classifies insects by their sound-spectrum and locates them within the room by calculating their position from the phase-differences?
The Algorithms would be essentially the same as the ones used for nautical sonar tracking (of which a Free implementation exists). So all I'd need would be a strong Laser on an automatic turret. Or whatever I like to shoot at them litte bastards.
Am I the only person who was revolted by this - and that so many people on this website thought it was a cool hack? I wish more people would think about what it actually means to make a device that is a weapon, designed to hurt and kill other people. Why is making a new weapon a cool thing? Why would something that could more efficiently hurt and kill people a cool thing?
What is wrong with so many people nowadays?
Till someone loses an eye.
Ok, this may be a little out there, but... what if you built one of these with a bit more, ok a whole lot more, image recgonnition and used it to fight invasive species in Australia? Could it be done?
A few hundred of these suckers could fry all the Cane Toads. Put some lasers on them to blind the frogs and they would die from starvation. Or maybe microwave them (but they might jump away). You could do the same thing for rabits and foxes.
Or pest control. Have it fry rats, or better yet, have it fry cockroaches, although I am sure they would develop a way to survive.
Maybe this could be an open-source project to save Australian wildlife.
Link directly to an 8.1MB file in the slashdot post! Apparently their server could handle it, but it's kinda mean, doncha think?
antipaucity
If you watch the video, it only tracks the white of the t-shirt. You can see this in the second part of the video where it shows the tracking area (which mostly consists of a rectangle around the shirt). So it can only attack people wearing bright white clothing.
...
While this is neat, it's not quite "The Quintessential Sentry Gun". Call me when you get better human-shape recognition....
So remember kids, when you go out burgularizing, Don't Wear White.
I, for one, welcome our new automatic sentry gun overlords.
Actually, that was relevant to systems other than UNIX. Any Commodore 64 BBS that utilized the Commodore-specific key codes for graphics and color did the same thing.
:P
So, yes, UNIX 101 was over. You were in the Personal Computer Telecommunications History class.
The Overrated mod is for reversing inappropriate, positive mods, not for voicing disagreement with a post.
Is this the sentry gun made as it was intended, or did Acrid- nerf it yet again to appeal to the clannies whining about the use of defense instead of learning how to properly play the Cyborg?
Oh, wait... reality != Weapons Factory.
A rottweiler named Jaws and a Belgium Shepherd.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
I thought ^H^H meant *cough* *cough*
And just used one of these trackerpods.
You reached the same conclusion than I. :)
Problem I see with this is resolution. I thought of sound (as you did), sub-millimetric radar . . .
But, IMHO, the best solution would be those mosquito magnets they sell in outdoor equipment shops, you put it on a box with one hole (to serve both as ventilation and trap entrance) , and in that hole an IR beam that triggers a laser zapper, just inside the hole. Its: a) contained, no laser scorches all around the house; b) relatively easy/cheap to implement, less variables in the process.
The theatrical version cut the sentry guns scene, along with a bunch of other important points.
Would it be easier using an infrared camera instead of a normal web cam? Then you just aim in on the moving heat source instead of trying to analyze whole screenfuls of data. I'm just imagining a blue-ish background with a bright red shape moving around on the screen...then it wouldn't really matter if the person is wearing bright clothing or dark clothing.
Or am I way off base here?
It appears in the book and is after they get stranded on the planet. They are basically sealing themselves into the medical lab hoping for rescue to arrive before becoming dinner. It all goes bad when they realise the local reactor is going to blow long before they can be rescued.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Here's how the pros do it. This is from
p g48.htm
http://www.mediacen.navy.mil/pubs/allhands/jan00/
Phalanx Close-In Weapons System (CIWS) The Phalanx CIWS combines a 20mm Gatling gun with search and tracking radar to provide surface ships with terminal defense against anti-ship missiles. The system underwent operational tests and evaluation on board USS Bigelow (DD 942) in 1977 and went into production in 1978 with the first systems installed aboard USS Coral Sea (CV 43) in 1980. The original versions used rounds made from depleted uranium that have since been replaced by tungsten rounds. Caliber: 20mm/53 Rate of Fire: 1,000-3,000 rounds/min. Muzzle Velocity: 3,650 ft./sec Range: 6,000 yds. Manufacturer: Hughes Missile Systems Company
[ ]Clever sig [X]Lame sig
Poor guy deserves to be put out of his misery.
Always hated kids who needed cheats, oh well I'm making a scope for my airsoft gun that lets me see all walls as wireframes.
So you could have typedorfor an equivalent, but even geekier, humorous effect.
(Note also that you shouldn't have a space after the "^W", because "^W" deletes back only to, but not including, the previous space.
Similarly, in your original example, you should have omitted the spaces after each of your "^H" sequnces, or made each six long, instead of only five.)
Those who sacrifice security to condemn liberty deserve to repeat history or something. - Benjamin Santayana
My younger brothers are really into airsoft. They only problem was they removed the little orange tips on the guns to make them look real, and then went and played in a public park. When the police showed up with real guns and arrested them it wasn't so fun. Luckily they all got off with a stern warning and a small fine (all involved were minors at the time).
I have no doubt that militaries around the world have experimented with (and perhaps even deployed) sentry guns, but this is something any halfway intelligent thug with an old computer and a AK-47 can throw together. I could see some very powerful uses for this in guerilla warfare, gang warfare, and for drug runners. For a few hundred bucks (less if they steal the supplies), these guys can protect their turf, protect their stash, set up ambushes for their rivals, etc.
I never referred to airsoft as paintball - I said call me when they SWAP IN the paintball rig - cuz it's a much better effect on those black Jehovah's Witnesses' suits.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
The Navy, at least, has many weapon systems that are capable of automatically detecting and engaging targets. Someone else in this thread mentioned PHALANX, which is an automatic air defense gun. Turn it on, set it to AAW AUTO, and it shoots anything it deems to be a threat to the ship (to be a threat, a target has to be airborne, closing the ship at a certain rate, and no further than about a mile away).
Also, AEGIS, the combat system installed in cruisers and guided missile destroyers, can be placed in an AUTO SPECIAL mode, which does somewhat the same thing, except it launches surface to air missiles. This is rarely done, but the capability is there.
Sean
Yup, Aliens. The scene in the movie was quite weak so didn't make it to the theatrical release, but you can still see it (among other deleted scenes) in the Special Edition DVD (R2 at least).
Why?
Because ^U meant "delete line" long before ^W meant "delete word".
In fact, ^U as line delete originated at DEC, I believe, and was used in their systems (e.g., DOS 7 for PDP-11 in 1974, where I personally remember using it) long before it was used in UNIX.
(I think that DEC also originated using ^C as the process interrupt character (whereas UNIX originally used DEL (and I still use DEL myself to this day)).)
In addition, ^W originated in the Berkeley version of UNIX first (probably in the vi editor before the TTY drivers), and only later made it into UNIX in general.
Oh, and in case you are wondering, the original standard character erase and line erase characters in UNIX (which are now ^H (or BACKSPACE) and ^U) were # and @, respectively.
This made it a pain to write C preprocessing statements in ed, the line editor that preceded ex and vi.
Those who sacrifice security to condemn liberty deserve to repeat history or something. - Benjamin Santayana
Red Green made a personal rocket-pack once.
It didn't turn out, but it might give you some ideas to start.
(Wish I had a link)
Exam 4/C again. Maybe I'll do better this time.