When [Paul Rea] started work with his current employer, he was intrigued by a traffic light that sat unused near the entrance of the “Engineering Loft” where he was stationed. He promised himself that he would get it working one day, but several years passed before he had the chance to take a closer look at it.
He took the light home with him over Thanksgiving weekend last year, and started to dig around inside to see how things were wired up. It turns out the light was a pretty simple contraption, though he discovered it ran on mains voltage, something [Paul] didn’t really want to fiddle with. He swapped out the traffic light’s bulbs for some low-voltage models, which he could easily power with a 12v wall wart.
[Paul] then added an Arduino and PIR sensor to the light fixture in order to detect when someone was leaving the Engineering Loft, warning those who are on their way in. He says that people don’t really pay attention to the light very much, though he is pretty happy with the results.
Continue reading to see a short video of the traffic light in action.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yw46A_LB3Nc&feature=player_embedded&w=470]
If I had an ‘Engineering Loft’, I would totally install a slide to get back down from it.
That thing has “Smash me with a Baseball Bat” written all over it.
Not the hack, but the concept of putting a pedestrian traffic light in any work place.
At the high school I went to, there were a couple of staircases that were always jammed with people in both directions (these were at opposite ends of a 2-story building and connected the ground floor to the first floor) and I had vague thoughts (and some random schematics) drawn up for some sort of traffic lights to control this (e.g. make each stair one way somehow). Never actually went anywhere (neither did my electronics hobby as I switched completly to the cheaper hobby of computer programming) but it was still a cool thought at the time.
We could sure use these in our offices which have keypad entry on the outside. Many times while entering my code, someone in full conversation will just throw the door open, almost demolishing those of us on the outside.