Room blaster, the motion sensor you'll steal from your kid
By Marc Perton 
posted January 27th 2005 1:15PM
posted January 27th 2005 1:15PM
We've had our fill of boring motion-sensor alarms designed to clip onto laptop bags or hotel room doors and sound an
alarm when rattled. Why can't someone make a motion sensor alarm that looks like an alien robot, makes really loud
user-selectable noises when it detects an intruder, and fires harmless-but-startling foam disks at said intruder?
Someone must have read our minds, because the Room Blaster is all that and more (though it's missing the high-powered
laser we were so hoping for). Sold as a kids' toy for as little as $19.95, the Blaster looks like the perfect geeky
cubicle-guard as well. We envision parents snatching them from their kids and bringing them to the office to fend off
annoying bosses co-workers.
I got one from iWooT or whatever you call it.
I was very dissapointed, I had envisioned a cool gadget that automatically turned in the direction of the intruder, said something like "intruder alert, intruder alert" and started blasting off disks.
Instead I got a Big piece of plastic, that's pretty hard to assemble because you need a really tiny screwdriver, but I guess it makes it sturdy. It doesn't move, it only shoots the foam disks in the direction you put it, and neither very quick or very far. Basically it's good for about 5 minutes of geek humor, then you put it away with all the other useless gadgets.
Also mine startet making a loud noise that wouldn't stop until you took out the batteries.
1/5 stars for the 5 minutes of laughs.
That sucks, I wanted one.
Opspin, can you comment on the "really loud user-selectable noises"? Cause I am willing to overlook the disk deficiencies if it's loud enough.
the point is it doesn't TRACK the target, meaning it just shoot's in the direction you manually point it in, if something comes in that direction it'll shoot, but nto follow the target. Cool but not as coo las you might think. I wanna see someone hack up a tracking version of this, maybe one that shoots plastic BBs
I worked with an engineer who told me a tale of escalating warfare (non-lethal) with a cat. The cat did the cat thing, and lept upon his screen door in the early morning, screaming and demanding entry. He actually built some kind of water catapult that he could aim with strings from his bed. The punch line was that for each innovation the cat worked out a counter-strategy, and won.
Maybe he needed one off these.
Opspin, can you tell us more about the motion-detecting ability of this gadget?
I'm buying one to stop my buddies from coming to the apartment and bumming beer off of me all the time.
Hi all, The motion-detecter is basically a motion-detecor, if it's triggered it starts shooting, but only in the direction you put it, and the motion sensor is obviously only triggered if you walk right in front of it.
It has four different settings, selectable with the remote. From something like Warning shot, that only fires one, to full assault mode, that fires until the chaimber is empty, there is some sounds when it shoots, I can't remember the specifics about the sounds, but it doesn't say "Intruder alert"
When they make one that can actually turn and shoot a moving target, I'll definately buy another. This one is only good for kids age 5-7 or something. I guess I would have liked it better then.
Strap this to a remote controlled car, fit a gun instead of the foam thing... and I think you've just built what the US has spent millions building ;)
Someone has to do it.
I cannot find a seller for this item. When I googled it, Target came up but the link was for something else. Any ideas?
Ken
It's on www.thinkgeek.com. :D
I got one from thinkgeek. Fairly Cool, i give it a score of 65%
Personally, I think the motion sensor is perfectly fine. I did not expect that for less then $150 it would track targets.
Cool Points:
- Remote works good and is fully functional.
This was a real surprise for me. I was just expecting off and on. You can toggle the 4 modes, arm/disarm and manually fire it from remote.
- The "Armed" Sound produced many laughes around work.
Cons:
- The attack is quite pathetic. The little foam discs kinda flutter out the from. Might as well shoot bubbles. This might be hackable with a better motor. We're checking on it.
All in all, the ONLY use for this is to hide in someones cube and surprise them when they get in. After the surprise/fun wears off, I'm going to see how it works in keeping our cats off our kitchen table.
Has anyone made custom disks that could actualy do some damage for this thing?
I have a room blaster. Found the best position to face it is into a room next to the door so it shoots people in the back as they walk past.
yes its a shame it doesnt motion track...