Hardware Hacking Projects for Geeks

180

Part II: Advanced Hacks, Tools, and Techniques

light, a signal sent to a remote indicator warned me that someone was about

to sneak up behind me. A diagram of my setup is shown in Figure 9-1. This

system can also be built using an infrared beam entry alert, saving you the

time of assembling the laser system.

I also added an LCD to the system to display the number of times my cube

had been entered.

Project Overview

You will first build a small circuit board that holds a microcontroller, photo-

detector, and laser diode. (Or, if you choose to use an off-the-shelf Radio

Shack entry alert system, simply assemble a microcontroller board.) Next,

you will program the controller with a small piece of software and set up

your system.

For this hack, you will need to know how to solder and how to program a

BasicStamp2 controller.

Remote

indicator

Laser/IR

transmitter/

receiver

Mirror

Figure 9-1: Intruder detection system in operation

Project Overview

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1/13/2002 4:14:33 PM