i am luke anderson » Projects

Cityrail Tickets

luke — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 04:17:34 +0000

I was going through my desk drawer at work the other day and found a heap of old cityrail train tickets. Then I started to wonder what exactly is on the magnetic stripes in these tickets. So i got a cheap magnetic card reader from eBay and found that it contains 2 tracks of data. I’ve included 3 examples below…

Example 1
Track 1: B00DF10003AF4012B551F37AADECC4C990BB8552A21CC008CB
Track 2: B00DF10003AF4012B551F37AADECC4C990BB8552A21CC008CB
Expires: 2010-06-27 (Weekly Ticket)
Destinations: Sutherland -> North Sydney
Numbers on back: 21JE 1826113815
Bottom Corner: BN-01-10-INGFEDCBA987654321

Example 2
Track 1: B0364ABBB814FBA90EE2C07AADECC4C990BB8552A21CC008CB
Track 2: B0364ABBB814FBA90EE2C07AADECC4C990BB8552A21CC008CB
Expires: 2010-07-04 (Weekly Ticket)
Destinations: Sutherland -> North Sydney
Numbers on back: 28JE 1948076713
Bottom Corner: M0903589

Example 3
Track 1: B06A867774D4489A3DD1F3D007466E6333FF588B3B1CC008CB
Track 2: B06A867774D4489A3DD1F3D007466E6333FF588B3B1CC008CB
Expires: 2010-07-11 (Weekly Ticket)
Destinations: Sutherland -> North Sydney
Numbers on back: 05JL 1940877977
Bottom Corner: M0904821

If you read the ticket before and also after its swiped through the gate, it appears the data on the tracks does not change. Not sure what any of this means at the moment, but looking at the last half of the tracks on the cards i saw, it seems like these may be the stations i travel to and from? All 3 cards seem to have “CC008CB” in common. I’m also curious to see if it’s possible to clone the data of one card to another and use it through the gates.

Has anyone experimented with this or decoded what the data is or how it works? Possibly even how to manipulate the data into creating a valid ticket?

First Arduino Sketch

luke — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 12:45:58 +0000

Just did my first Arduino sketch! Just flashes 5 LED’s on and off in sequence on a loop of 5. Not super exciting yet, but gotta start somewhere. Video and sketch are below for anyone interested.

Download: Flash5_LED_Loop.pde

Arduino!

luke — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 05:51:54 +0000

Got my Arduino today! Only cost me $37 bucks from Toysdownunder.com! Hopefully can do some cool things with it soon. I’ll add it to the list of projects i start but never finish

Things i plan on doing with it…

CNC Controller (so i can build my own CNC machine)
Make a daft punk helmet (just because)
Control an RC car through the intertubes

If you have an Arduino, what are some of the things you’ve made?

Project Explorer: Day 1

luke — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 21:32:37 +0000

So last year i decided to start trying to build a guitar. I’ll be putting up progress shots as i go along, but for now, these are some (delayed) shots of when i got the slab of mahogany, and after it was cut out.

Time taken from slab to cutout and cleanup: Approx 2.5 hours.