Haunted Mailbox

Abstract

This project uses electronics to bring a mailbox and some lawn art cat to life in a spooky Halloween haunting theme.

The Haunted Mailbox

Intro

This year turned out to have a lot of trick-or-treaters and we gave out a ton of candy. To decorate the property we carved up a pumpkin face, which is a tradition for us, but also added some electronics to a lawn art black cat and our mailbox to provide a little more surprise and interest to the site.

he "haunted" mailbox had animated eyes that were looking around, making the mailbox look alive. The effect is a bit un-nerving, because the eyes are very realistic (high resolution TFT displays) and the animation is also very realistic.

The black cat was given some red LED eyes hat turned on when a PIR sensor detected someone comes close. This is a bit startling because it makes the cat look like it suddenly woke up and got angry.

The Haunted Mailbox Video

This year's pumpkin..

My work party costume - The Tariffying Pirate..

Discussion

I didn't deploy my huge inflatable spider this year, because of all the rain but the trick-or-treaters and their chaperones all seemed to find the of the displays interesting and several commented that they found the haunted mailbox very impressive. We enjoyed all the costumes and my wife engaged them in discussions about their costumes.

Of course the candies were the main attraction. My wife had some fun with some of the bigger kids - when there wasn't a line up, she would give them some candy and then ask them if there was some type they preferred (we had a wide selection) more than something they already collected. And then she would barter. like - would you trade a bag of chips for 4 chocolate eyeballs. They always got more than they expected and they got what they really enjoyed, so a good time was had by all. Which is what it was all about.

Category : project