What’s better than a motorized Super Soaker? A motorized Super Soaker that can blast water when it detects motion.
As fun as water balloon fights may be, when it comes to summertime fun, nothing beats a good ol’ Super Soaker battle with friends. That is unless, of course, you decide to up your outdoor H2O warfare arsenal with some motion sensing water guns.
Instructables user “aderhgawen” has developed a water spraying intruder alarm based on a LightBlue Bean (ATmega328P) along with a PIR motion sensor. Not only does the modded Super Soaker Thunderstorm automatically squirt water when it detects movement, it also triggers a nearby computer to snap a photo of the victim and tweets it. This is accomplished through the combination of Node-RED and Python to link the MCU to Twitter.
In order to pull off this project, the Maker tore down the original Soaker’s casing and cut one of the battery wires. He then lengthened the exposed ends and ran them out of the gun to his control circuit. Beyond that, he connected a protection diode to help prevent any reverse EMF from damaging his more sensitive electronics. Since this gadget has a motorized pump, he used a MOSFET on a breadboard to drive its motor, allowing it to be controlled by the Bean.
The system itself runs on a computer and monitors the Bean’s serial output. If motion is detected, it triggers a Python script and captures a photo via the webcam. A second script will upload that photo to a Twitter account. The Node-RED server can also monitor the Twitter account for incoming direct messages. If it receives a message with a verified password, it can use the rest of the message as one of four commands to enable or disable the Super Soaker.
Are you looking to take your water gun fight to the next level? Check out the Maker’s entire project on Instructables here.
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