D3b: Police Gun
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This gun does not throw bullets where it is aimed. Instead it projects the name of innocents murdered by police. It forces the wielder to reflect on the damage of which they are capable, and the mistakes of those made before them. An iPhone runs OpenCV on the camera image to identify faces. It generates a name and date of death for each body and fixes it to an interpolated chest position. This is projected back onto the person with a Optima ML750 picoprojector connected to the iPhone via a lightning to HDMI adapter. The iPhone and projector are aligned and made into the form of a handgun using an Open Beam chassis. ‘Firing’ the gun by recoiling it upwards displays another name, using the iPhone gyroscope. Previously I had received feedback on the first iteration of the project. The cardboard phone attachment was replaced with an aluminum construction, making the device more durable and professional-looking. Another criticism received was that projecting just a heart onto a person is a task that a simple flashlight can do. So the content of the projection was expanded. Taking the project to the next step would mean strengthening the emotional connection to the victims portrayed, as a name & date is a relatively clinical representation of a life. The device could be made into a weapon attachment for use in empathy training of police forces. Users reported that the light from the projector was too bright when pointed directly at them. I reduced the brightness and found that the effect was improved and the face recognition functioned better. Code: |