Arduino Airsoft Turret

National Robotics Week Robot Contest: Age Group 13-18 

Whether you are fighting in an airsoft battle, or defending your desk at work, an airsoft turret is a must have.  In this Instructable I will explain how to make a relatively cheap and simple turret based off of an Arduino Mega.  Once you have the basic turret built, there are many cool things to add that can make the turret a lot more complex and fun to play with.



Here is an example video of what you can do with the turret:

Step 1: Materials and Tools

While it seems that there are a lot of parts required, this project can be done on a relatively cheap budget depending on where you buy the parts.  The following parts are what I used to make my turret, they do not have to be exactly the same.

Parts:

Crossman R-71 Airsoft gun
Airsoft bullets

Electronics:
Arduino Mega
Arduino Mega Protoshield from Sparkfun
BlueSmirft-Bluetooth Modem
VEX 9.6V battery
(2) VEX Continuous Rotation motors
VEX Extension Cables
Assorted electronic parts *See airsoft gun electronics page

Structure:
Assorted VEX metal
Assorted VEX screws and nuts
(2) VEX 84-tooth gears
VEX 12-tooth gear
VEX 36-tooth gear
VEX axles

Miscellaneous:
FoamCore board
Wire
RoboRealm Software
Joystick
(optional) Laser pointer
(optional) Wireless Camera


Tools:
Hot glue gun
Saw
Soldering iron
X-Acto Knife
Wire cutters/strippers
Solder
Computer

Comments

[rtw1701]

I liked that scene in Aliens where they had the auto turrets killing them off. Also played this lesser know game called Fireteam and u could find auto turrets in there for protection. Looks pretty nice but work places I've worked don't allow weapons even toy ones these days :( Nice accuracy.

[increadibad12k]

could you use a paintball gun for this turret with the same electronics? such as a spider pilot ACS, get back with me on this ASAP PLZ!!!

[survivorwolf]

Mostly yes you will probably need better motors for moving the gun around

[Dearden805]

Check out this link: https://sites.google.com/site/projectsentrygun/home
A lot of cool stuff, helpful to.

[amorgan3]

I am currently working on a Paintball Sentry as well so I can tell you don't base it off this instructable as this is built for a much lighter weapon to be mounted. Yes the electronics are the same but as for the same turret very unlikely.

[sentryGun53]

Great work! I'll trade you some autonomous code for some joystick code... https://sites.google.com/site/projectsentrygun/

[adrian zerboni]

man that amazng work u did i really want to build one i have a question if all i do is use the joy stix will i have to have the pc to power it . what im meaning is if i took it to a air soft game just have the joy stick and mount a laser on on the gun can t run without the pc

[Mavamaarten]

That was awesome :D

[bkrause]

omg, thank you sooooooooo much for that diagram and showing the actual required components , lol, sometimes saying u need a transistor is not enough, but you have shown which ones, so thanks again

[TheWaddleWaaddle]

Does it have to be an Arduino Mega or can it be any other Arduino because I kind of have a tight budget.

-TheWaddleWaaddlle

[12grahamb]

It can be any Arduino. Changing Arduinos could potentially cause some unforeseen changes though. I chose the Mega just because it has a lot of ports and chances are you won't run out.

[TheWaddleWaaddle]

Where does the red wire from the Arduino Digital Out Prt go to or is it just not used?

-ThewaddleWaaddle

[12grahamb]

It is not used. You can simply cut it off.

[iputra1]

wow it's cool project....
how about using openCV ?...its can more interesting, i think

[transuranic]

SMIRF lol

[frank26080115]

Did you modify the VEX radio receiver to become a housing for the BlueSMIRF? How did you attach a duck antenna onto a BlueSMIRF?

[12grahamb]

Yes, I opened up the VEX radio receiver and took out the electronics. Then I mounted the BlueSmirf in the "hollowed out" radio receiver. I did this just to make it easier to mount the BlueSmirf on any VEX metal. As for the duck antenna, I bought this adapter which fits perfectly with this duck antenna.

[CrLz]

Nice!

Love to see a subsequent ible incorporating autonomous control- robot sentry bot!

[MichelMoermans]

Great work!

This is the first of the sentry ible's that can actually convince me to build one!

Although perhaps it would be more accesible if you could perhaps make a "sentry for dummy's" ible because some of the steps like building the gear frame and the electronics aren't really accesible for an amateur noobie like me...

Also a tip, put the video also on the first page ;) with it on the first page you'll avoid show us a video of it comments and it'll generate more attention and traffic :)

[your dog]

Wow really cool! Can't wait to get an Arduino and try this myself!