Subscriber Discussion

Hack The Robot

U
Undisclosed
Sep 11, 2016

There are at least two Knightscope robots wandering the convention center. There's a red one down by reg, and a white one on the second floor. If you've not seen one I encourage you to check it out. If you've not seen one, think Daalek with no arms (the arms would help, they should have a selfie stick, people are getting their pictures taken with the thing...)

Some questions (for medicinal purposes only, of course...)

  • Is the motion sensing really that bad? There's a news story one of these things ran over a toddler in a mall in California. I found it to not react very fast if you walked around it in a circle at a normal speed. Of course, it's got cameras, for all I know there's a command center full of geeks laughing at us tourists poking at the robot.
  • Is that red circle near the top a button? Is that "emergency stop" or something? No I didn't try touching it.
  • Anyone got one of these deployed? I first met one in an integrator's parking lot, I hear they are deployed. I also hear it's remote video back to them, not at all connected to the local VMS. Wouldn't you want this thing somehow connected to your local systems?
  • What would happen if I turned on my android phone flashlight and stuck it in one of the camera "eyes"? What if a gang of kids all turned on their phone flashlights? Would that blind the thing? How about a laser?
U
Undisclosed #1
Sep 11, 2016
IPVMU Certified
U
Undisclosed #1
Sep 11, 2016
IPVMU Certified

tl;dr

UI
Undisclosed Integrator #2
Sep 13, 2016

I'm assuming this is a glorified Roomba. Here's a few ideas to test if you have one of these or if they let you play with it:

1. See if one of these works.

2. Try one of these.

3. Since it has to recharge every 2 1/2 hours just prevent it from getting back to it's charging station... One of the above seems simple enough to do that with.

4. I'm assuming there is also a human operator and it's making use of WIFI to communicate back. Make noise on the appropriate frequency to shut that down. In an expo center there is probably enough WIFI noise this likely does not work already.

5. Like a Neatobot or any bot which uses LIDAR I wonder if a mirror would throw its navigation off.

Avatar
Ari Erenthal
Sep 13, 2016
Chesapeake & Midlantic

$5 to the first person who teaches the robot how to feel love.

I assume it already knows how to feel hate.

(3)
Avatar
Armando Perez
Sep 14, 2016
Hoosier Security and Security Owners Group • IPVMU Certified

Send it over to the hikvision booth. They'll have it mining bitcoin in no time!

(1)
U
Undisclosed
Sep 14, 2016

charging plates appear to be on the floor outside the main entrance. So... two steel plates on the ground, hook up an arc welder (maybe just a taser), wait until the thing drives over it. Do inductive charging mechanisms have surge suppression?

at least two other robots on the show floor, one claiming it's the worlds only/first outdoor robot (not.) Maybe they should toss the three of them in an arena and let them fight it out...

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