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!"

Comments

Re:OUch....

[CableModemSniper]

They coral cached the video link.

Re:Just because Slashdot is now CSS...

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a coral cache link, is it not?

Re:Cubicle Defense Mechanism

[BrynM]

Thinkgeek offers one that shoots foam discs.

(homer)
mmmmmm.... toys
mmmmmmmmm.... linky...
(/homer)

Buy your own

[nick13245]

ThinkGeek sells an "office safe" version of this:
http://www.thinkgeek.com/cubegoodies/toys/71bc/M/

Re:Buy your own

[Axess Denyd]

It does not appear to aim, though.

The target tracking is the best part.

mirror

[jaredmauch]

here 8MB Quicktime. on my historically fast host.

If you're in Asia use this link.

CTRL-H Defined

[WidescreenFreak]

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

[StikyPad]

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:Cubicle Defense Mechanism

[jonfelder]

I bought the one on Thinkgeek. As someone else mentioned, it doesn't track. It's still cool, but has a big problem. The flicker of flourescent lighting triggers the motion sensor on it.

Makes it kind of lame in an office environment.

Re:Little brothers ARE good for something!

[Kyaphas]

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.

Re:Little brothers ARE good for something!

[SlamMan]

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 make the ball fire with acceptable range for whatever field you're planing on.

Re:The Army will be all over this

[Molochi]

Phalanx has been around for a long time, since the '80s I think. The navy uses it to shoot missles out of the sky with a 20mm Vulcan cannon. If you've played BF2, it's that gun mounted on the aircraft carrier. Except in RL it's automated.

Actually, it is the Director's Cut of Aliens

[fuzznutz]

The theatrical version cut the sentry guns scene, along with a bunch of other important points.

Amateurs

[CrankyOG]

Here's how the pros do it. This is from

http://www.mediacen.navy.mil/pubs/allhands/jan00/p g48.htm

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

Use ^W to indicate word deletion

[some guy I know]

Wow, what a freak^H^H^H^H^H geeky^H^H^H^H^H cool thing to know!

To delete entire words in UNIX/Linux, you can use "^W" (i.e., "CTRL+W" in MS-speak).
So you could have typed

Wow, what a freak^W geeky^Wcool thing to know!

or

Wow, what a freak geeky^W^Wcool thing to know!

for 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.)