Here’s a project that you don’t want to bring into an airport, ship through the mail, or probably even remove from your home. [ProjectGeek] has built himself a simple kitchen timer masquerading as a bomb. The build is actually pretty simple, but the end result is something that would look at home in a Hollywood action flick.
The timer circuit is built from four simple components. An 8051 microcontroller board is used as the primary controller and timer. The code is available on GitHub. This board is attached to a another board containing four momentary push buttons. These are used to program the timer and to stop the buzzing. Another board containing four 7-segment displays is used to show the remaining time on the timer. A simple piezo buzzer is used to actually alert you when the timer has run out. All of these components are connected with colorful jumper wires.
The physical part of this build is made from easily available components. Old newspapers are rolled up to form the “explosive” sticks. These are then covered in plain brown paper ordinarily used to cover text books. The rolls are bundled together and fixed with electrical tape. The electronics can then be attached to the base with some hot glue or double-sided tape.
Thank god this was not another article about adruino.
I don’t think they ever posted something about an “adruino”. What is this mystical device, you are talking about? Is it an arduino clone of some sort? :p
I think it is a clone, designed to “ruin” competition with lots of “ad”s
Best point in time, now that “arduino.cc vs. arduino.org” is going on.
Best possible outcome would be the trademark cannot be enforced because of dumb sites like this using the word generically to describe anything remotely has a uC essentially diluted the trademark and the trademark owners did not do their part to defend it. All that legal fees and dramas got them nothing, but being a laughing stock. (pun intended)
A guy can only dream. :P
+1
Wow, just read some of the comments on the instructable page. First, a lot of people seems to be able to missunderstand the purpose of the device (an egg timer), and second some people seems to think posting a project like this can somehow make the designer responsible for other people making real bombs.
Which really makes me appreciate that I live in a country/region where people are held responsible for their own actions (ie, you can’t blame someone else for the bomb/stupid decision/etc _you_ just made) , and where humor, particularily of the sarcastic kind, is well understood (and abused).
Seriously. If I wanted an egg-timer bomb, I’d use an egg timer and not go though all this trouble of programming, wiring, etc. If it’s mechanical, just put a (sensitive) button between the bell and hammer. If it’s digital, the speaker/piezo output can be used directly and amplified via transistor if need be.
or use a cheap mechanical wrist watch, remove the minute hand, drill a hole in the face, put one small wire into the hole to contact the hour hand at the right time, and attach the other wire to the metal case.
I used to do that as a kid! I had a wind up clock and it was all metal (incl hands) so a wire on the chassis and a wire taped to the faceplate bent so sticking out to catch a hand. It really was my pretend play time bomb, but activated a motorised toy instead
Or as the author said: “If i ever wanted to make a real bomb, I would never make it look exactly like a bomb.”
What is wrong with those people? Do they really think showing people how to roll paper gives them the know how to build a bomb? I think they watched too many roadrunner cartoons.
There should be a toggle for an old-style short beep every second (annoying mode)
What movie was it that the ‘hero” cut some wire on the bomb, the display went blank, he sighed relief, and the display came back with a lot less time on it?
Naked Gun, maybe?
Isn’t that pretty much a standard for script writers? The hero then finally manages to successfully disarm it when the timer is at 00:01 and there is a pack of unsuspecting children 10 feet away…
;-)
I thought it was the standard for bombs to only become fully disarmed when the timer has a second left, no matter when it was actually disarmed.
It always baffles me that the display pauses when they cut a wire. It’s either going to cut power to the display, or cut the connection to the detonator, which the timer is then not going to know about…
I think the red and blue wire should be much larger (guage) and separate from the others. “Cut the red wire! No! Cut the blue wire!”
I’m with you on that. I was going to say it needs more colors for the wires because in the movies the color of the wire is more important that what it does.
Remember that scene in Abyss where Ed Harris is cutting the wires on the bomb and only has the monochromatic light from his glow stick to work by ;-)
Remind me to use all red wires if I ever make a bomb. /joke
In all honesty, I’d just use a radio to arm with a capacitance-watching metal mesh grid. You touch = game over. But in all honesty, I’ll stick with cool projects that do good for everyone.
This guy takes geekdom in the kitchen to the next level: http://www.cookingissues.com/
From having his kickstart for a cooking torch, non-Newtonian goo Korean noodles, talking about compound in browning meat with graph from gas chromatograph, centrifuge, lobster anesthetic, talk about muscle damage due to stress etc.
Can they find a way to get this thing to open your garage door? I don’t think there have been enough GDO hacks on HAD lately :P If I was building this I’d paint the “sticks” red and run some coiled wire from some unused pins into the newspaper stack… It doesn’t look like the timer is connected to the sticks… I could see many people being worried about something like this but the info to make a real one isn’t hard to find this is just a prop so I wouldn’t worry about it as long as you don’t go waving it around in public…
Can this be taken through an Airport??
Yes. Absolutely.
Especially in Boston.
(reminder: a woman was arrested as a terrorist there for the heinous act of wearing a t-shirt with LEDs in it)
And the great Boston Lite-Brite scare of 2007.
I have it on good authority that the first person to recognize that ‘bomb’ as Mooninites was a 20-year-old dude in a TV studio.
Zebler and I had a talk about our common interest at Sphongle last year. Video light shows.
He ended up costing TBS $2 million. One million went to Boston Police, the other to TSA. Ouch!
The wires comont out of the bundle need to coiled in a spiral. And of course the brand name known best,ACME.
Even the TSA need to cook their eggs properly, right?
well, better than a bomb that looks like a kitchen timer :D
Hello Peeps,
Im the original other for this post
>This was a project i mostly made because the geek inside me was dying out of boredom
>This was just a one day project, hunting the right product took more time than building it
>The hardest part of the project was rolling the papers, trust me its not as easy as it looks
>Do let me know if you have and queries
>You can follow other projects of mine @ http://www.instructables.com/member/ProjectGeek/
Neat, but not so useful in Hollywood because the LED display is multiplexed. Our eyes won’t see the flicker but a camera will.
Good point. It needs a few more wires or maybe a shift register.
All it really needs is some dynamite…..
For some reason, I see this as not strapped to sticks of dynamite, but some rather long tamales. Hot tamale, hot hot tamale, hot tamale, hot hot.
Mmm, tamales.
outlet powered? hmm I’d have put AA or AAA cells in the tubes and run the power wires out to the board
Nowadays even exposed wires is enough to convince people your hobbyist electronics project is a bomb..
My Defusable Clock product has been on the market for years.
http://nootropicdesign.com/defusableclock/
I’ve sold thousands, and there have never been any problems with my customers. In fact, law enforcement agencies are my customers, including TSA. Police departments, counter-terrorism units, and even a U.S. Navy ordnance disposal unit.