If you’re a fan of the Alien franchise, you should check out this motion tracker project created by Billy O’Sullivan from the maker channel Shed Tech. Using a Raspberry Pi, it’s themed to look like technology straight out of the Alien universe and uses sensors to detect motion—making this a working motion tracking device.
The motion tracker has two modes that you can enable back and forth at the push of a button. The first mode functions as a demo that simulates motion detection while displaying animations on the LCD screen. The second mode accepts input from the motion sensors and shows the approximated location on the screen. The system also features sound output created by a 3V buzzer that you can toggle on and off.
It is one of several projects O’Sullivan had shared before, including one we had the opportunity to cover just a few months ago. One of his most recent Pi-powered projects includes the Armatron, a wearable gadget built around our favorite SBC.
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His creations involve 3D printing custom shells, and this project is no different. The case for this motion detector is, in our opinion, a beautiful design and can be 3D printed with plenty of room to mount the necessary hardware inside. It operates using any 40-pin Raspberry Pi model and requires three HC-SR04 ultrasonic sensors, a buzzer module, a couple of buttons, and a 100Hz square LCD screen. The unit recharges using a USB charger.
The software for this project was also created by O’Sullivan using the popular programming language of choice, Python 3, along with the Pygame library. The code is open source and available over at GitHub for anyone who wants to download and check it out.
If you want to recreate this Raspberry Pi project, check out the original video on YouTube to see it in action, and check out the description for additional build details. If this project is up your alley, follow Shed Tech for more cool creations and future microelectronics projects.
