Part of The definitive guide to open source hardware projects in 2009
Culture jamming – These projects are not only open source hardware, they aim to open ours minds a bit. A cell phone jammer, a universal device that turns off TVs and an open source homeland security non-lethal weapon.
Bedazzler
After attending a conference where the $1 million “sea-sick flashlight” (named “THE DAZZLER”) was demonstrated by the US Dept. of Homeland Security, Adafruit decided to create their own version. For under $250, you can build your own dazzler and they’ve released the source code, schematics and PCB files to make it easy. A great Arduino project for people who really like blinking LEDs. They have also added in a mode selection so you can put it into some pretty color-swirl modes, great for raves and parties!
Price: Not for sale (about $250 to build your own)
Visit the project page
TV-B-Gone
Tired of all those LCD TVs everywhere? Want a break from advertisements while you’re trying to eat? Want to zap screens from across the street? The TV-B-Gone kit is what you need!
Price: $21.99
Visit the project page
Buy one @ Maker Shed
Wave Bubble
A self-tuning, wide-bandwidth portable RF jammer. The device is lightweight and small for easy camouflaging: it is the size of a pack of cigarettes. An internal lithium-ion battery provides up to 2 hours of jamming (two bands, such as cell) or 4 hours (single band, such as cordless phone, GPS, WiFi, bluetooth, etc). The battery is rechargeable via a mini-USB connector or 4mm DC jack (a common size). Alternately, 3 AAA batteries may also be used. Output power is .1W (high bands) and .3W (low bands). Effective range is approximately 20′ radius with well-tuned antennas. Less so with the internal antennas or poorly matched antennas. Self-tuning is provided via dual PLL, therefore, no spectrum analyzer is necessary to build this jammer and a single Wave Bubble can jam many different frequency bands – unlike any other design currently available! To reconfigure the RF bands, simply plug it into the USB port of your PC and type in the new frequencies when prompted. Multiple frequency ranges can be programmed in, each time the device is power cycled it will advance to the next program in memory.
Price: Not for sale (about $200 to build your own)
Visit the project page
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