VB6-controlled USB Missile Launcher
by SteveDiRaddo on Aug.20, 2009, under Hacks and Mods
In the category of things already done, this one is the most dangerous. You can shoot your eye out, or otherwise hurt yourself or others, or break things if you aren’t careful. Here’s how to control it using Visual Basic. And tinker with the idea of making it autonomous.
Basically I took the idea from InventGeek, and built up on it considerably. The original project is here: http://www.inventgee … turret/Overview.aspx
The idea was to buy a $20 USB Missile Launcher, and mount an airsoft gun on it. Well that was the easy part. The hard part was interfacing it with Visual Basic. I saw much demand on the net for people wanting to control these USB launchers from VB applications. Nobody was bring particularly helpful. SO I took it upon myself to adapt some HID VB Code that someone else came up with, make it work seamlessly with this particular USB device, then make it modular enough to be plugged into and controllable through any VB application you can make. The module and an example form, written in Visual Basic 6, can be found here:
http://www.stevedira … ntent/usbmissile.zip (17k)
But thats not good enough for me. I want it to do more. Sitting at your computer and controlling a USB airsoft gun is boring. Why? The gun is right there. Pick it up and aim it yourself. Or.. pull a mad scientist and add a webcam, lasers, motion-detecting targeting software and you have yourself your very own sentry gun. YAY! While I haven’t written the software for that yet, it will be done shortly.
