The Sentry Project
Here’s your worst enemy … or friend: a Paintball gun mounted on an Autonomous Turret Sentry. Its purpose… well, after watching the video above I hope you can see the capabilities of this… masterpiece. The Sentry Project was started in a garage by an avid backyard paintballer. After over a year of tedious revisions, it has developed through 9 prototypes and is the most evolved Autonomous Sentry on the web. The paintball sentry uses software that is specifically written for a custom servo controller, a device that sends commands to servos to aim and fire the paintball gun. The software was written by the designer to enable the turret to rapidly track, anticipate and engage multiple targets – and is very customizable.
If you’ve already had your eye on this project, you should know that recently more videos were released by its creator. They’re all worth a watch, the creator updates his website and youtube page with videos all the time. It’s very cool to see such an advanced paintball project unfold.
Cost
The designer claims that you can build one of these paintball sentrys for under $500. He sells software kits directly through his eBay store. The software kit is the most inexpensive solution for owning your own Automated Sentry. It is ideal for those of you who are mechanically inclined or have custom applications in mind. He plans to sell completed turrets in the future after he simplifies its construction.
I had the pleasure to ask the designer and founder of The Sentry Project, David, some questions about his work:
Kyle: What exactly led up to your idea to create an autonomous paintball sentry gun? Just bored one day?
David: I loved using sentries in games like Tribes 2 and Perfect Dark. Then I saw a few, really crude projects from different college kids on YouTube and, even though I had no real reason to think so, thought I could do better and went for it.
Kyle: You’ve received well over 1 Million views on Youtube with your project videos — What do your friends/family/teammates think about this project?
David: They’re tired of hearing me talk about it 🙂
Kyle: Do you plan on selling these bad boys anytime soon? I want one to replace my guard dog…
David: I’m looking at ways to make them easier, simpler, and less expensive. I definitely don’t want to spend all day building them so I’m thinking of paying my brother to build them :). Right now I could sell them for under a grand but I would like to be able to sell them for under $500. The cheaper the better.
Kyle: Thanks for taking the time to speak with me David, I am looking forward to seeing your Sentry Project unfold.