Rollin' with the Hackers

The Flipper Zero has received a lot of attention in the press both for its many features that make it an excellent multi-tool for pentesters and other hardware hackers that want to play with radio protocols or access control systems, and also for often sensationalized accounts of its ability to be used for nefarious purposes. But whatever the use case, how often have those of us that have a Flipper Zero looked at it and thought how much better it would be if only it had wheels? I mean, who wants to carry it around in a pocket when it could drive around and follow behind us?

Realistically, just about no one has ever thought that, aside from Hackaday.io user Lexi. Jokes about what it could be used for aside, a free-moving robotic hacking machine is actually a very interesting idea. It could be used for some stealthy operations to play pranks on a neighbor, or maybe even some practical applications. Whatever your use case may be, Lexi’s Tengu Marauder looks like it would be up to the task.

Just add wheels (...and a bunch of other stuff)

While details on this project are still pretty scant, the Tengu Marauder was designed with hacking short-range wireless networks, like Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, in mind. The robot was built into a 3D-printed case that looks like a futuristic car, with large wheels driven by a TT motor. A Raspberry Pi 4 single-board computer loaded with ROS2 Humble manages the motor driver to help the robot get around. Tengu Marauder was also designed to be extensible, so if you need additional accessories for your application, adding them should not be too difficult.

Of course this is basically just a fairly typical small, wheeled robot so far. For hacking purposes, Lexi added in an ESP32 development board that was flashed with Marauder. If you are not familiar with Marauder, it is a suite of offensive and defensive tools that leverage the Wi-Fi and Bluetooth transceivers of the ESP32 — it provides a bare ESP32 with many Flipper Zero-like capabilities. An Xbee X2C module was also wired in for an additional wireless communication option.

At this time, only some very rough instructions have been provided in the project write-up, so it is far from a step-by-step guide if that is what you are looking for. But for the more experienced hardware hacker, the few pictures, details, and bill of materials should be more than enough to inspire the development of a very similar tool. If you do decide to build your own Tengu Marauder, be sure to post the project to Hackster — we would love to see it! It would be nice if you could also provide more detailed instructions in your write-up to give newer hackers more guidance in their own build. We all have to start somewhere!