paragiraffe

Have you ever noticed those yellow lines at the edges of parking lots that supposedly stop the carts from going anywhere? I’ve been wondering about these lately and how they work — whether there’s some sort of device or some sort of social engineering.

Anyway as it turns out the carts are outfitted with a locking wheel, and when rolled over a transmitter — a wire placed just outside that yellow line in the asphalt — the cart will cease motion abruptly. It’s like an invisible fence for carts. At least, that’s what the internets say.

On Instructables there’s directions for making an EMP shopping cart locker to lock up the carts on command, say, inside a store. Sounds fun but it’s a lot of work.

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