Banner image: Senior Kenzy O'Neill makes an adjustment to his team's safecracking robot. (Credit: Mason Marino/CU Boulder)
The scene could be torn straight from the latest °æ³¦±š²¹²Ōās heist film: Inside CU Boulderās ATLAS Institute, three undergraduate students clamp the metal frame of their robot onto a home safe. The robot, which looks a bit like an old Erector Set, whirs to life, using a spinning wheel to turn the dial on the lockbox. It whirls through a series of possible combinations.
If seniors Andrea DeVore, Kendle McDowell and Kenzy OāNeill have done their work right, the safe should pop open in a matter of minutes. Now, all they have to do is wait.Ģż
It may seem strange that university students are working to bust into a safeāand for academic credit, no less. But DeVore, McDowell and OāNeill are taking part in a new course, called Safecracking, that teaches budding engineers how to do just that.
The class isnāt encouraging thievery, explained instructors Alicia Gibb and Nathan Seidle. Instead, theyāre challengingĢżtheir students to stretch their engineering and design skills to solve a real-world problem in an environment that lets them feel like secret agents for the semester.
āItās really piquing their intrinsic motivation to learn,ā said Gibb, who founded and directs ATLASā appropriately-named Blow Things Up Lab. āThat way, we can teach them all about power management, motor controls and mechanical features, all in one class.ā
The approach has captured the imagination of Joe Ryan, a senior in theĢż (TAM) Program. āIt felt like an accumulation of everything weāve learned in the program so far with a really cool point of view, because cracking safes is cool,ā he said.
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Stocking stuffer
Itās also not easy. Seidle is a CU Boulder alum who founded , a Colorado-based company that produces open source electronic components and other tools. He was inspired to design his own safecracking robot last year when Gibb, his wife and co-instructor, bought him a used lockbox off of Craigslist for $20.
āI got a safe with no combination for Christmas,ā Seidle said. āI love puzzles.ā
To solve that particular puzzle, he took advantage of a few quirks in the way that many combination dial safes are manufactured. By exploiting those design flaws, he was able to narrow down the list of possible combinations that might unlock his safeādeveloping a robot that could churn through the three-number codes .
Top: From left to right, Joss Gitlin, Andrew Shepherd and Julian Torres troubleshoot their safecracking robot; middle: Joe Ryan and Laney Winkler work to open up a safe that unlocksĢżusingĢża numerical keypad instead of a dial; bottom: aĢżrobot spins the dial on a combination lock safe. (Credits: Mason Marino/CU Boulder)
Seidleās students are taking a similar approach to their safes, but theyāve also made the project their own, he said.Ģż
One team, for example, modified a vintage suitcase to house their robot, turning a relatively ugly contraption into a retro spy tool. Another team opted to crack open a safe that unlocks using a numerical keypad instead of a rotary dial, a more difficult feat of engineering.
āThereās been a couple instances in this class that I really enjoyed when the student says, āoh, thatās what they were talking about,āā Seidle said. āItās that moment where they learned something in another class, and they didnāt know why. And, suddenly, it applies or clicks.ā
āI had no idea how a standard combination lock worked,ā said Laney Winkler, also a senior in the TAM Program. āThere are so many things we take for granted, and we donāt know how they work. But when you actually hack into them you can see how things move.ā
The loot
Gibb wants her students to learn more than just how machines move. She also hopes that they will leave the class with a grounding in the ethics of āwhite hatā hacking. Thatās the term for when computer programmers and engineers take apart secure systems not to steal anything, but to design products that work better.Ģż
To that end, the group has discussed the cases of famous hackers like Edward Snowden and Aaron Swartz. And theyāve brushed up on Coloradoās legal statutes for owning lockpicks.
When it comes to hacking, āa lot of times that word gets hijacked to say that itās only for evil,ā Gibb said. āWeāre trying to take the term back.ā
Itās a goal that DeVore, McDowell and OāNeill are closing in on now. They cracked their safe using their robot for the first time a few days ago. āI think we spent 10 minutes just walking around the roomā and celebrating, McDowell said.
Since then, Gibb and Seidle have changed the safeās combination, making this next attempt a bit trickier. After a suspenseful wait, the safe clicks, and the students toss open the door. Inside, they find a custom-made circuit board and three laminated one-dollar billsāthe reward from their teachers for pulling off the perfect score.
