Parking lots... What in the name of Oprah is the deal? I'm not going to name any names... but it seems the campus lot I tend to use seems to be a constant source of confusion for the the many cars it swallows... They have this system see... tickets and whatnot... machines with many slots... I dunno... People clearly seem to have problems with it... It's actually not unusual see a couple cars stuck in the exit on the way in/out... Isn't anyone else concerned about these innocent victims lost in the lot?! (or those stuck with a heinous flat-rate?!). In all seriousness... I think parking lots/structures could be improved immensely... A simple google search will yield countless patents concerning improving their efficiency and accessibility (not to mention safety!). Sketchy!
Well, worry not... A solution does indeed exist... at least for a particular type of gate... Many varieties exist... some magnetic, some proximity... and some... well, much more efficient/fool-proof/or erm... 'heavily surveiled'... So discretion is advised! The gate in the video, as Jason from hackaday.com points out, happens to be a high oscillation/proximity type... As such, effectively anything that can break or attenuate the signal could potentially trigger it... and consequently, the fact that these guys happen to use "metal" objects is somewhat (or completely) moot... Also, as one commenter happened to point out... if this was in fact the magnetic type, the use of an aluminum can would probably not be ideal... being non-magnetic and such... Rather, anything with a magnetic field, such as an mp3 player/laptop/or even *sigh* an iphone (glad he's getting his money's worth out of it...) would be more likely to work with the magnetic variety....
Go save some hapless parking lot prisoners!
Free Parking at school?
Priceless!!!