Automated NERF turret
So, exams are finally over and I’ve had time to get playing with something again. Some friends bought me a NERF Vulcan for my birthday (cheers!) and of course I had to mod it up. The gun itself is now running off a 3-cell lipo pack, which about doubles the rate of fire, and has three ammo belts chained together to give 74 rounds in one continuous burst of fire.
I then hooked up an Arduino and servo motor to a series of cabletied pencils, which can pull the trigger on command. The Arduino and a USB webcam then connect to a laptop which is running motion and a small python script which interfaces to the Arduino and plays sound clips from Portal turrets when motion is detected/no longer detected.
The whole thing works very nicely, shooting down anyone who walks into my room with a rapid burst of darts, and terrifying them with the portal turret sounds.
Check out http://www.flickr.com/photos/randomskk/sets/72157624178093055/ for more photos!
I modified Principia Lab’s servo code from here and motion and Portal turret sounds from Valve’s Portal and the code below for controlling motion and the arduino and playing the sound files:
[...] exams behind him [Adam Greig] had time to make a Nerf sentry gun. It’s actually quite easy to pull everything together. He’s got a netbook running [...]
Nerf sentry turret - Hack a Day said this on June 18th, 2010 at 7:13 pm
That’s really cool. Now, go clean up your room!
Johnson said this on June 18th, 2010 at 7:39 pm
[...] exams behind him [Adam Greig] had time to make a Nerf sentry gun. It’s actually quite easy to pull everything together. He’s got a netbook running [...]
Nerf sentry turret | Geoff Hatch Technology Resource said this on June 18th, 2010 at 7:48 pm
[...] exams behind him [Adam Greig] had time to make a Nerf sentry gun. It’s actually quite easy to pull everything together. He’s got a netbook running [...]
Nerf sentry turret | Video Game News, reviews, and information. said this on June 18th, 2010 at 9:03 pm
That’s an excellent job! I built a similar turret last year. http://jeremyblum.com/2009/05/15/nerf-sentry-gun_be-afraid/
Jeremy Blum said this on June 19th, 2010 at 1:32 am
Nice! I really like your system. I’m planning on redoing the triggering to replace the servo with an electronic system, but this way was fun and quick and easy.
Random said this on June 19th, 2010 at 1:38 am
[...] files from Portal turrets when motion is detected or stops being detected.” Das Blogposting: Automated NERF turret und hier gehts zum Flickr-Set (woher das Zitat [...]
Gepimpte Spielzeugknarre: Automated NERF mit Motion Detecting Software : misterhonk.de said this on June 19th, 2010 at 11:50 am
[...] Greig from Negative Acknowledge has developed a nice Nerf Sentry Gun, he used the NERF Vulcan which was the same gun I was thinking of using for my Nerf Gun project [...]
Nerf Sentry Gun - Hacked Gadgets - DIY Tech Blog said this on June 21st, 2010 at 8:38 am
[...] Greig from Negative Acknowledge has developed a nice Nerf Sentry Gun, he used the NERF Vulcan which was the same gun I was thinking of using for my Nerf Gun project [...]
Nerf Sentry Gun | The Express Art Blog said this on June 22nd, 2010 at 12:19 am
what OS were you running on the laptop? I’m trying to setup a similar project but i’m having problems
Antiklesys said this on June 23rd, 2010 at 12:06 am
The laptop was running Ubuntu linux.
Random said this on June 23rd, 2010 at 1:11 pm