Building it
Ok, how are we going to put that stuff together? It's supposed to work like
this: On the floor, right beneath where the swordfish hangs, the button is going
to be placed. It runs only to the wireless remote next to it, so no-one will
be able to deduce a connection to the swordfish from it. As soon as the button
is pressed, the remote-controller wall socket will turn on and power the
5V-PSU, which will power the motor, releasing the swordfish to inflict doom from
above. Ok, first of all, I needed to change the motor into some kind of
electronically controlled quickrelease. I basically used a multitool to carve
an useful piece from a bit of scrap metal and used that:
The swordfish itself has a rope around it, connected to a metal ring that's hung
over the piece of metal. I decided to use a metal ring to make sure the rope doesn't
get stuck by a snag on the metal or something, ruining the effect.
The connection of the newly-made quickrelease to the rest of the system isn't that
hard: quickrelease motor is connected to the 5V PSU (using duckttape) which is
connected to the remote-controlled wall socket which is plugged into a real
wall socket via an extension cord. This is what it looks like:
Now we need to modify the remote: while it works OK as is, it's a long way from being
interesting enough to fiddle with. This was the remote in its pristine form:
And this is what I modified it to. I basically stripped the housing, added
a battery and soldered the button to the 'on'-button of the remote-controlled
wall socket I use. The duckttapey blob with the red and black wires sticking out of it
is a 3V lithium-coin.
Now all we need is an interesting sign which'll give any passer-by the urge to
press the button... I settled on a piece of cardboard and used duckttape to
stick the remote control to it.
Now all we need is a decent caption... I decided to go with reverse psychology:
the Dutch word on the sign roughly translates to 'Don't Touch'.
Now all we can do is wait...