Hasta La Gadget!

Next time you forget the combination to your locker, you might turn to a team of students at Olin College of Engineering. Instead of using the brute-force method of hammer and cold-chisel preferred by tough-guys such as me, they opted to be egg-heads, and built a robot that will solve any Masterlock combination un under two hours.

If you know one or more of the numbers in your combination, the robot will crack the code much quicker. Quick enough for you to open “your” locker, grab whatever you came for, and get out, undetected.

The robot consists of a clamp, which hold the lock in place using a thumb-screw, and a puller, a solenoid-controlled grabber which yanks the loop of the lock to try to open it, and a stepper-motor which actually turns the knob and dials in the combinations.

Once the lock is in place, you fire up the companion software called LockCracker. You input the numbers you know, hit start, then go out behind the bike-shed to smoke an illicit cigarette. The software — written in Python — runs through all possible combinations in turn, trying the lock each time (so it really does use brute-force after all). Eventually, it will pop, and you’re in. It will even tell you the combination so you can do it yourself next time.

Like any powerful invention, the LockCracker can be used for good or evil. Or just demonstrations. Seeing as you would have to drag a computer, workbench and the robot itself into the locker room, this may be a little unwieldy for your criminal capers. Perhaps that hammer and chisel will be useful after all?

The LockCracker [Olin. Thanks, Jessica!]

See Also:

• Theft Proof Bike: A Conceptual Red Rag To a Bull
• Lock Pick Business Card
• Kwik-Pick Now Opens Doors for $20