Motion Activated Super-Squirter Stands Guard

Super squirter automatic water gun

Thieves beware. If you prowl around [Matthew Gaber]’s place, you get soaked by his motion activated super-squirter. Even if he’s not at home, he can aim and fire it remotely using an iPhone app. And for the record, a camera saves photos of your wetted-self to an SD card.

ESPino, ArduCAM UNO and voltage converter boards
ESPino, ArduCAM UNO and voltage converter boards

The whole security system is handled by three subsystems for target acquisition, photo documentation, and communications. The first subsystem is centered around an ESPino which utilizes a PIR sensor to detect motion. It then turns on a windscreen washer pump and uses pan and tilt servos to squirt water in a pattern toward the victim.

The target acquisition hardware also sends a message to the second subsystem, an ArduCAM ESP8266 UNO board. It takes a burst of photos using an ArduCAM Mini Camera mounted beside the squirter outlet. The UNO can also serve up a webpage with a collection of the photos.

The final subsystem is an iPhone app which talks to both the ESPino and the UNO board. It can remotely control the squirter and provide a video feed of what the camera sees.

One detail of the build we really enjoyed is the vacuum relief valve he fabricated himself. It prevents siphoning through the pump when it’s not on. Don’t miss a demo of the squirter in action after the break.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94JgzTSS4HA

Automatic soaking seems to be a thing here on Hackaday. [Ashish]’s motion sensing water gun not only soaks his officemates but also tweets photos of its exploits. And [Austin Shaf] keeps his soaker hidden and triggers it remotely via wireless.

14 thoughts on “Motion Activated Super-Squirter Stands Guard

  1. Dog, cat, squirrel, possum, coon, and groundhog to name a few who should be targets in town. The robins would have a field day! Come to think of it raccoons will want drink to eat. Humans though can fire back.

    1. Another cat can only be “unwanted” if it comes into the house. So an RFID could be useful for the cat door. In the garden cats normally check this out themselves, that no foreign unwanted cats come into their territory.

  2. Nice, but it really does need some image recognition, especially for particular ‘objects’ as a previous poster suggested (cats, dogs). Having to respond to a message on your phone to tell it to go… the offending ‘object’ would likely have done what it came to do (leave a present on your lawn) and left!

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