LCARS Security Door

 

Background

When the mother of my children mentioned that I should keep my office door locked so our sons could not access my office I became intrigued with the idea of using some kind of automation to accomplish this. I was always working with robotics and that left scrap metal and various other types of items laying around that young children could get hurt on. Initially, the goal was to come up with a tech savvy way to un/lock the office but the technology didn’t exists.

When I was about 10 I remember Star Trek The Next Generation (TNG) was one of my favorite shows and my fondness was actually kick started again by a fellow co-worker of mine. This co-worker would bring his Star Trek DVD’s to work and on some nights he would come to work dressed in his full Star Trek uniform! At first that seems really funny but he was very intelligent and I never minded having a conversation with him about various topics.

As time went on I thought it would be a kick to skin my security touch-pad door system using the TNG look, style and feel. In the Star Trek fictional universe, LCARS (/ˈɛlkɑːrz/; an acronym for Library Computer Access/Retrieval System) is a computer operating system. Within Star Trek chronology, the term was first used in the Star Trek: The Next Generation series. I had always enjoyed the idea of touchscreen computer work stations as well as a computer system build into the living environment. My research for artistic insight got me watching the show again and I had a lot of fun revisiting some childhood moments. I was able to capture the TNG skin for my door panel and so I know have a TNG door touch-pad locking the office!

In addition to designing this touch screen panel to un/lock the office doors, I also built a voice recognition software program that I used to voice control the office. If you’re curious to learn more about my voice recognition software check out the following sources:
  • On my website HERE
  • Source code & instructions on Code Project HERE
  • PDF instructions HERE
  • Source code & instructions may be found on Github HERE

Summary of Downloads & Extra Links


 

Helpful links

 

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