Geek invents cell phone button pushing machine for weekend job

Apparently, Mok Young Bacq works on the weekends doing some sort of work for an online gaming company that involves needing three mobile phones and being able to call a number of things stop working correctly. The guy likes to travel and the roaming charges on the mobile phones were more than he could stand to pay so he cobbled up a DIY machine to press the buttons from home over the internet.

The machine is what you see in the photo above in the center of that ladder. It's a very complex looking machine with tons of wires, servos and a camera that lets the geek see the screen of the three phones and he can press any of the buttons on the phone with his system.

The camera aims downward at the phone screens and moves in a pendulous manner. The buttons are pressed with a flexible cable. The thing I have always learned the hard way with a complex system to do something simple is that things go wrong. I wonder what the dude will do if his fancy machine breaks and he can't dial a number while he is on vacation.

Via Hackaday