April 6, 2011

LockCracker picks any combination lock!

Have you ever been blocked from something by a combination lock that you didn’t know the combination for? I once had a locker in junior high school that someone put a combo lock on. Not one of my better days.

I’m guessing that something similar happened to this team of students at the Olin College of Engineering. They have created the LockCracker, which has the ability to pick any combination lock if one, two, or three of the numbers have been forgotten or not known.

You can watch a video of how it works after the jump. You will see that a clamp holds the lock in place while a solenoid yanks the loop. There is a stepper motor that turns all possible combinations, and I believe that the process takes a few hours before it will pop, assuming that the first few tries don’t do the trick.

That is something that we all might need at one point in time, but I am wondering if the LockCracker setup can accommodate a real-world situation where it would be needed. In other words, they might have to make a version of a LockCracker that works on that aforementioned situation when someone puts an unwanted combination lock on a locker. As of now, it looks like an apparatus that only works on singular combination locks


25 comments:

  1. This awesome! You can probably open a business opening locks this way :D

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  2. Ah man, I want it.


    Could be so useful..... hmm.....

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  3. Cool, easier ways for a thief to take your stuff.

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  4. A little too bulky for a thief to want to carry around. lol.

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  5. This is one of those things people will wish they could un-invent. I'm sure of it.

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  6. thats pretty cool, not that i have any of those locks

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  7. So many movie heists could have been successful if only they had the LockCracker handy!

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  8. wow, they got a machine for everything, now i just need a machine for scratching my butt... ill call it a BUTTSCRATCHA!

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  9. this is gonna be useful when i... break into your home... :)

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  10. This isn't going to fall into the wrong hands or anything. XD

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  11. seems too bulky, but its awesome

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  12. Good to know that I'm not in trouble if I forget the combination to my locker at school.

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  13. well interresting, i'll can steal houses with that !!!! GREAT or maybe not

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  14. A bit bulky for any discreet lock picking :P

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  15. This is amazing. I can't believe some of the things that people come up with now a days. Its pure awesomeness.

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  16. brute forcing a padlock, nice. Wouldn't it be faster to cut the lock?

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  17. I think I can make this ^^
    Would take some time tho, This is just what I am studying! First thing I see that I know electrical engineers built!

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  18. Woah, I need to build one when Im hooked on crack and need to support my habbit.

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  19. I used to be able to pop combination locks in highschool just with pen caps. Those days are long gone, it appears!

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  20. I know some people who will like to buy this! :D

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  21. any master combo lock can be opened in about 10 min without knowing any number.

    I am a CRL

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