Reader [aaron rasmussen] and his brother Ezra built this awesome robotic sentry gun. The gun is an airsoft replica of an FN P90 and fires 6mm BBs. Pan and tilt are controlled by two hobby servos using a simple controller. Aaron wrote custom software to watch the usb webcam and track targets. There is a video on the site of it being tested
Wow. Sci-Fi stuff is coming to life! I like this project.
Posted at 9:50 am on Sep 21st, 2005 by Injulen
i built something similar but with a real pistol. but it had too much recoil for the tripod top, was largely inacurate, could only fire once(tripod/aiming mechansm broke after first shot). plus a friend of mine who is a cop informed me that such a device was illegal since it was considered a booby trap. i hate america. illegal to defend your hame and well being. what a worthless country.
Posted at 10:21 am on Sep 21st, 2005 by duffman3030
duffman3030, Worthless people make a worthless country, and with people like you around we’ll soon be worthless. Get a damn clue. I’m a gun owner and a proud American. Your only complaint should be that you are too inept at convincing other voters to see things your way through legal means (no LSD in the drinking water). Go jump out of black helicopter loser.
Posted at 10:31 am on Sep 21st, 2005 by Loquax
loquax, get a grip. You’re the one coming across like a nut. Instead of calling someone else a loser, why don’t you examine your own life? Proud American, indeed.
Posted at 10:36 am on Sep 21st, 2005 by zen
If you’ve ever lost anyone close in defense of this country you’d understand.
Posted at 10:38 am on Sep 21st, 2005 by Loquax
That thing would be a beast if you put a real airsoft gun on there! Maybe an upgraded armalite with an autowinding drum.
Airsoft Hacks equal coolness. Check out http://www.unconventional-airsoft.com/projects.php
for some more, including a simpler motion sensing turret.
Posted at 10:43 am on Sep 21st, 2005 by joejack
I totally see loquax’s point. But this would be sweet in paint ball. But you would have to put a paintball gun not an airsoft gun and you would need the rage finder and possible a wind speed detector.
Posted at 10:47 am on Sep 21st, 2005 by bird603568
Sorry I went off guys. After looking at this thing it would also be sweet to combine this with the IR Camera hack and have an adaptable camera lense (or lenses) to allow this thing to work at night. This would make a great paintball mod.
Posted at 10:59 am on Sep 21st, 2005 by Loquax
handbags away, lady’s
Posted at 12:00 pm on Sep 21st, 2005 by Joel
im sorry to have offended you loquax. its just that while me and my mom were at the hospital visiting my dad our house got robbed. so i built a little defense system and then found out that it was illegal. furthermore, a friend of a friend got stabbed multiple times by some guy who he then shot(in self defense). this friend of a friend then went to jail for carrying a concealed weapon. (the only reason he had it was because he had been attacked before). now you cant say that that is fucked up. that is why i hate this country, because of the laws that always punish the victim more than the purpetrator.
that having been said the only reason i have yet to enlist in the military is because while i dont mind dying i do mind having my arms and legs blown off and then being discharged. what would i do then? so im getting a college degree then joining so thaif im discharged due to injury or i get riffed then i mont be SOL!
Posted at 12:23 pm on Sep 21st, 2005 by duffman3030
cooooooooooooooooooooooooooooool, now how’s about this with a gaus gun, and make multiple sentries that all work from different angles but from one camera, or maybe multiple cams? O_O
Posted at 12:48 pm on Sep 21st, 2005 by maurik willemse
HUDSON: We’re all gonna die, man. We’re doomed. Game over.
RIPLEY: These boys built a sentry gun with no training, and no funding from Homeland Security.
HUDSON: (whining) Why don’t we put them in charge, then.
Posted at 1:28 pm on Sep 21st, 2005 by el payo
Sounds like something I did a while back: http://www.cs.uwec.edu/mics/CD%20image/papers/paper6.pdf
Great job though! Yours probably works better than ours did! (and it looks better too)
Posted at 1:36 pm on Sep 21st, 2005 by Douglas J. Hickok
Wow, that was my favorite gun in Goldeneye 007 on the Nintendo 64.
That thing has an pretty impressive tracking speed and firing rate.
Posted at 2:03 pm on Sep 21st, 2005 by Johnny
This is badass. A real Weapon with this running XP (or Linux or OS X for that matter)is a nightmare. Can you imagine a REAL blue screen of death? But,this setup with a paintball gun filled with pepper spray balls could be a viable home defense option that won’t kill you or your family if it malfunction’s. Oh and that MAY be legal (I don’t know)
Posted at 4:11 pm on Sep 21st, 2005 by SomeCat
NIce work on the robotics and tracking software. I can’t say I care for the application. There are already too many firearms on the planet(whether they are for ’self protection’ or otherwise.)Nobody’s property is worth taking a life for. How can you ensure that such an automated weapon is protecting life? I regret that many of the wrong people will read this and build something really stupid. and possibly get hurt/killed doing so. Lets keep it fun kids.. stick to spud guns.
Posted at 6:38 pm on Sep 21st, 2005 by Modul8
There’s a painball version already:
http://codeninja.de/autosentry/
Posted at 6:39 pm on Sep 21st, 2005 by EdZ
I’m thinking it needs an IFF system. Something based on RFID, maybe? Tag friendlies with an RFID tag, set it up to only fire on targets within a certain range (inside the range of the tags) that don’t emit a “friendly” frequency?
Sound plausible to anyone else?
Posted at 8:55 pm on Sep 21st, 2005 by Aaron brown
I daresay a spud gun can do a hella lot more damage than an airsoft gun.
I would comment more, but I have a distinct feeling discussion here could degenerate to a 2nd Amendments flamefest if we aren’t careful. 
Posted at 9:24 pm on Sep 21st, 2005 by joshua holbrook
I just gotta say that just looks darn right awesome. Way to go. Great job.
Posted at 12:55 am on Sep 22nd, 2005 by amaspri@yahoo.com
http://www.nosc.mil/robots/payloads/nrows/nrows.html
see the real deal
Posted at 1:39 am on Sep 22nd, 2005 by Edward_the_first
Wow, thanks for all of the support. I’ve gotten such a huge response, I’ll try to put up an FAQ soon. I really appreciated the links to similar projects, especially the paintball version. I definitely considered a paintball version, but the recoil would be really tough on my rather light servos.
Posted at 5:42 pm on Sep 22nd, 2005 by aaron rasmussen
that’s my roomie!
Posted at 11:12 pm on Sep 22nd, 2005 by Brandon
Very cool… but you better add a “mailman” filter.
Posted at 11:22 pm on Sep 22nd, 2005 by Eric
looks like we got slashdoted
Posted at 11:32 pm on Sep 22nd, 2005 by pretorious
Can I get a copy of the software? or maybe even the source code I have two airsoft guns and such a nosey brother that I have barbed wire where my door nob should be, hardly slows him down.
Posted at 11:49 pm on Sep 22nd, 2005 by Sirus
Welcome Slashdotters. We’ve got another good story lined up for tomorrow. (Not as much pain though)
Posted at 12:52 am on Sep 23rd, 2005 by Eliot Phillips
Imagine a beowulf cluster….
Actually, a live streaming feed with the option of “Perferate? y/n” would be helpful.
Posted at 1:05 am on Sep 23rd, 2005 by YourTechSupport
You shouldn’t have much of a problem with a painball version if you wanted to go that route. Paintball guns don’t have much recoil if any at all, due to the fact that the projectile they fire doesn’t carry near the amount of energy that I firearm produces (even one as small as a .22) and doesn’t really move the gun around much. Recoil can always be controlled by adding weight. However, a paintball gun with a fully loaded tank of CO2 may be a bit heavy for your servos to move around effectively. By the way, I would love to see the sourcecode to the software you designed around this application, that is if you are willing to reveal it.
Posted at 1:09 am on Sep 23rd, 2005 by Joe
You shouldn’t have much of a problem with a painball version if you wanted to go that route. Paintball guns don’t have much recoil if any at all, due to the fact that the projectile they fire doesn’t carry near the amount of energy that I firearm produces (even one as small as a .22) and doesn’t really move the gun around much. Recoil can always be controlled by adding weight. However, a paintball gun with a fully loaded tank of CO2 may be a bit heavy for your servos to move around effectively. By the way, I would love to see the sourcecode to the software you designed around this application, that is if you are willing to reveal it.
Posted at 1:20 am on Sep 23rd, 2005 by Joe
Yes, please consider releasing the source code. Inquisitive University students want to learn!
Posted at 1:51 am on Sep 23rd, 2005 by evan
haha what happens when a IR illuminator is thrown into the mix of things (aimes @ the camera)
Posted at 2:05 am on Sep 23rd, 2005 by crash
Fuck the police. And you self-richous morons who never served a day in your lives. As for those serving I can safely say they are not laying it all on the line so some fat ass-hole/buracrate can dictate how you should live.
All that aside. Yea…. America sucks!
Viable home defense? Until your 5 year old daughter wanders downstairs in the middle of the night for some water and is shot (in the heart, and you’re too blame..you give home defense a bad name).
Oooo yeah, not only a gun in your house, but an indiscriminatory one. Anyone ever see Robocop? The beginning scene with ED-209…awesome!
Posted at 8:38 am on Sep 23rd, 2005 by viablehomedefense
This looks a lot like a company that was operating in Texas.. http://www.live-shot.com
Be thankfull you do not live in England ( or U.K. if you know us by that ) This pinko government is trying to ban anything that even looks like a gun to a blind person.
Posted at 9:11 am on Sep 23rd, 2005 by roger m jay
I think it would be legal and palatable to anti-gun people if it shot a stream of indelible ink and then automatically dialed 911.
That would also prevent it from blowing itself off its stand with a real gun, too.
Posted at 9:43 am on Sep 23rd, 2005 by scottennis
Would be nice for our boys in Iraq to have somthing like this.
Posted at 12:04 pm on Sep 23rd, 2005 by Ken
The thing about home defense that seems to always be forgotten: you don’t have to outrun the bear. That is, say you are a burglar are going to rob someone. You have the choice between house A, that has a BMW out front with a Kerry 2004 sticker on it or house B with a pickup truck and or motorcycle, some bumper stickers denoting devotion to the 2nd Amendment, NRA, your favorite firearm company, favorite shooting sport, Libertarian Party, and/or U.S. Marine Corps and….THIS baby, fully tracking the movements of anyone who enters the yard with intent, implied malice. I submit that most thieves will choose house A. I really like the indelible ink idea, but even simply the idea of a gun-looking device that “watches” you enter someone’s property has a high deterrent factor even with no projectiles at all. Who’s to say the anthropomorphic thing is not taking pictures or dialing the cops/local mafia or a million other things? Very cool and well done gentlemen, I would very much like to see some source code if we may.
Posted at 12:04 pm on Sep 23rd, 2005 by rainrider
In England, the police shot dead a guy carrying a chair leg in a brown paper bag, no warning, just shot him, Americans, keep your firearms, ‘big government’ is after you!
Posted at 7:50 am on Sep 24th, 2005 by roger m jay
Sourcecode!!!
This a seriously cool project and i would injoy making a variant of it (without the gun/ any weapon)
Just a laser that follows you around, ive been searching the net for sourcecode for motion detection but cant find squat.
Posted at 9:04 am on Sep 24th, 2005 by stone
In Soviet Russia anyone who had a personal sentry gun would be forced to drink New Orleans flood water. This is why any proud American would gladly don his brownshirt to place one in each tolietry box he sends to the relief effort.
Posted at 9:59 am on Sep 24th, 2005 by ted sbardella
http://www.people.cornell.edu/pages/jc476/340project.html - this goon made a robotic airhockey partner using the same principle, I can’t remember if he divulges his source code though.
Posted at 10:12 am on Sep 24th, 2005 by Mrt
hi,
guns are good&defencive toooo….
but its 2 dangerous to play with it..
Posted at 1:07 am on Sep 25th, 2005 by somebody
modul8: a burglary may not be worth taking a life for, but how about someone who would kill (to dispose of witnesses) and/or rape your kids? And how do you know ahead of time what this burglar’s going to be like? “Please fill in this survey before forcing entry: (1) are you a crazed killer (Y/N)?”
vhd: the ed-209 comment is right on the mark. It’s why I would never automate anything lethal. But I’d have no problems with something like indelible paintballs. If it’s accurate enough to do heart shots, maybe it can colour-code the intruder? “What have we here? Red, Purple, Black; hmmm, that would be the burglary from 19 Elm Street last night.”
Posted at 9:23 pm on Sep 25th, 2005 by perth penguinista
rainrider: with a laser and a lens, you could draw a cross-hair. THAT would be disconcerting. (-:
Posted at 9:26 pm on Sep 25th, 2005 by perth penguinista
I’d be willing to pay for the source code also. I always wanted to do something like this but I have no idea how to any programming.
David c
Posted at 1:57 pm on Sep 26th, 2005 by David C
in response to the link of the “real deal” that works with a real gun.
”
Communications can be established in a direct link or wirelessly, incorporating anti-jamming, encryption, or low probability of intercept/low probability of detection (LPI/LPD) methods. ”
havnt they learned yet that anything wireless will and can be hacked?
come-on…
Posted at 2:53 pm on Sep 26th, 2005 by JSlice
All it takes is one loon with the source code to place a real auto-turret on a city block or the like. Personally I would like to avoid any responsibility for that, and understand why he may be hesitant to release source code.
I would also have to agree with those intrested merely in recreational use or a sentry as a deterent. Other than tracking, such a turret could also turn on lights around or inside the house, and if you really want to do damage, activate the sprinkler system (or a hose cannon) while the suspect is on the lawn. Firearms are far to dangerous for this system, and airsoft is dangerous with little kids around.
An improvement if you’re not going for a very mobile system would be to use several satelite cameras, allowing the gun to calibrate its-self, track multiple targets outside its view/range, judge distances to targets, and make it capable of continued operation should it be hit by paintballs. (Place paint grenade booby traps on the other cameras to prevent sabatoge). The same 3 or more cameras could also provide the guidence for lots of sentries, assuming you want them to fire in the same region. eg. protecting a fort or clearing.
Posted at 1:02 pm on Sep 28th, 2005 by mark coelho
“All it takes is one loon with the source code to place a real auto-turret on a city block or the like.” - mark coelho
Highly doubtful. The amount of recoil a real rifle has means you’d need a seriously heavy and reinforced base. It wouldn’t be something you could just jump out of your car with, plop down and scurry away from.
Posted at 10:11 pm on Nov 5th, 2005 by Inspector_71
I really hope to see one of these things in blueprint form, or all out production. Where do i sign up?
Posted at 1:43 pm on Nov 11th, 2005 by shawn524
To the guy who’s angry that he can’t setup a real lethal sentry gun in his house for self defense. What happens if you are not home, and your coffeemaker malfunctions and starts a fire in the kitchen and your sentry gun shoots the firefighters as they come in your house? Or, your mom has a stroke on the second floor & calls 911 and your system shoots the EMT’s. There are perfectly good reasons why you want to stay away from these kinds of systems. The best device for home security is… a dog that barks!
Not to say that the sentry gun isn’t way cool, cuz it is.
Posted at 2:37 pm on Dec 2nd, 2005 by Steve Peters
I didn’t mean they’d just stick it there and run. if it were disguised (a hotdog stand? :)) or placed on a building’s terrace, it could be quite potent and dangerous.
anyway it looks like he’s now building a marketable version, so we’ll have a propietary toy version to get our hands on instead of source code. this seems far more reasonable, as it funds his research and restricts use of his design. (you could always develop your own givin the concepts) There are some paintball based ones already out there (google ‘em) but their sites are nowhere near as complete, and the look heavy (appear to be heavy gauge, 2in square stuctural steel)
Posted at 4:40 pm on Dec 3rd, 2005 by mark coelho
I don’t think that it is necessary to make this with a real gun to be an effective anti burglar device. The fail -unsafe options described above pretty much cover all the good reasons not to use real guns.However, burglars getting hit with multiple airsoft BBs or paintballs whilst sneaking around in the dark of your house would most likely flee rather than proceed with their crime or move closer to the source of pain (which would be hard to judge in the dark of course). Also, sensations felt in the absence of other senses are usually felt more acutely. So the pain and shock would feel much more than the reality. Attach a flash gun and you’ll not only get an ID of your intruder but also a very funny pic of them to share with your neighbours.
Posted at 10:36 am on Jan 16th, 2006 by Chasbo
I use to make remote sentry,s that would kill and did so it was the only friend one really has in warfare. This the gun lacks a remote heart sensor I did not catch his detector but one must turn off the gun after it has killed the target or you may throw away thirty thousand rounds of amonition on a deade corps. But it scares the hell out of your advisary to see one that mean to shoot him that many times.
Posted at 7:20 pm on Feb 7th, 2006 by Paul Gibson
Also laser sentry,s as copied on star wars I did the first one. It was a chemical combustion laser with target recognition and acquistion of target. It was put into a five gallon can people loved it in some places because of jesus frog clones where crawling out of there holy holes and butchering any human it could get its tazer on. But most of the cans where rusty buckets. To fix it up and make it shine would bring on kleptominacs. The R2D2 was fix spiff up for the orginal Star Wars movie film in real battle not stage back in 1966 NOT by lucaus. Having two or three R2D2 sentries as documented in the film of a real attack by real clones out on the desert was neat and wipe out about 3 million advancing clones as seen in the original movies. One sentry might use the other sentry,s detection and race a laser beam infor the kill it was so violent seeing the sentry,s compete with each other to make a kill it was frightening.
Posted at 7:42 pm on Feb 7th, 2006 by Paul Gibson
Anyone know if the site is cached somewhere or have you saved it?
Posted at 5:48 pm on Feb 9th, 2006 by Colin
yeah the link is gone it redirect to usmechatronics.com. if someone can share cached version please do.
Posted at 2:28 am on Mar 1st, 2006 by rename
ok figured out the matter, its now here
http://www.usmechatronics.com/old_page/turret.htm
Posted at 4:36 am on Mar 1st, 2006 by rename
I live in Fascist Australia & I’m a WWII German Reenactor our problem is a paraniod .Gov, mounting a paintball,Airsoft or BB onto something like this would be totally unacceptable, not to mention the fact that Full & Semi Auto ANYTHINGS are illegal, so I came up with an idea to use a Dummy MG mounted on a tripod, powered by an Auto Windscreen Washer motor & CD Sound System with MG Fire, shoved into a sandbagged bunker it does the job, but it sucks in some ways, namely the fact that the Dummy MG has a wide swinning Arc & it rarely points at someone while making the “Simulated” MG sound, the ability for the unit to track targets would be awesome, anyone figured out software for this type of system?
Posted at 7:09 pm on Apr 15th, 2006 by panzerrat
Where can I get one, or how can I make one? Do you have instructions?
Posted at 12:34 pm on Oct 5th, 2007 by Paintball Guns
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Now that is a cool idea
Posted at 9:33 am on Sep 21st, 2005 by Arasoi