The IRritator

What sound does annoy you most?? Well in my case it is the Nokia Tune. So I made this little gadget for the April Fools' Project Prank Contest (So if you like this little Instructable then please vote for it).

Its principle is very simple. You hide it somewhere in the living room and every time someone hits a button on any IR remote control, it will play the Nokia Tune. You might expect two possible reactions:

They will look where they left their mobile or ask who's mobile is ringing.
They get annoyed once they find out that the remote control triggers it, resulting in a frenzy search for the source of the sound.

So whatever they do it will be funny and thats what we want ;-)

What Do I Need to Make This Prank?

You don't need much to make this little gadget.

A buzzer
An attiny13
An IR - receiver
A small battery (3V)
A soldering iron and solder
A bit of wire or a batteryclip to connect the battery

You might ask why I used these parts and there is only one reason: I had them in my parts-box!

The IR-receiver didn't have an id-number on it but a PNA4601M should do the trick.

I used the attiny13 because it runs on very low voltages (2.7V-5.5V ant the attiny13V even starts from 1.8V)so it runs from a tiny 3V battery and ofcourse the small size is a plus in this project.

If you don't know how to program an atmel microcontroller, I should suggest you to browse around in the Instructables here. There are very good Instructables about making programmers and how to program.

Please be careful when soldering. Children should always work under adult supervision!

Wiring This Up

Connect the + of the buzzer to pin 5 of the attiny13 and the output of the IR-receiver to pin 6.

Connect the - of the buzzer to the - of the battery.

Provide power to your microcontroller and IR-receiver by connecting the VCC/VS and Ground to the according terminals on the battery.

I added the hex-file so that you can program your attiny13.

Downloads

IRritator.hex

The Result!

I tested my IRritator and it worked pretty good. In fact there where only a very few number of spots in the room where it didn't react on the remote control.

I added a little video here for you to enjoy but you might turn the volume very high cause my camera doesn't have a good mic. In reality the sound is rather loud so I guess my mic is broken.

There is a minor inconvenience about this circuit and that is that the IR-receiver I used is in high state when it doesn't detect any IR. So even when idling the circuit will use power from the battery but It should easely last long enough to enjoy the prank the whole day long ;-)

Downloads

IRritator.wmv