Actions
Forum Thread Details
  • Replies 26 replies
  • Subscribers 40 subscribers
  • Views 2308 views
  • Users 0 members are here
Related

Halloween projects anyone?

battlecoder

So Halloween is around the corner and I was wondering if anyone here had any plans to build or "hack" Halloween decorations for the Spooky season.

Me, personally, I want to do something with a mist maker and a cauldron ... or something. I think that would be fun.

A couple of Halloweens ago I hacked this plastic skull to make it come "alive". I used a regular Arduino Uno to read WAV files from an SD card. WAV files are super easy to decode and play sound samples from, and as long as you play them back at the correct speed, which in this case was accomplished with interrupts. It was a super quick and dirty approach, but I didn't have any sound-playing module. I did have to build a small audio filter and connect it to a tiny "amp" board to drive the speaker, though.

The skull also was supposed to move the jaw while "laughing" but the tiny servo I used died once it was very securely glued in place, and I didn't have the time nor the patience to take it all apart to replace it.

Maybe I'll try to repair this skull for this Halloween too.

Parents

  • For me, Halloween is a fulltime event.  One of my clients 3D prints skulls (and now arm sets) as his side hustle.  I provide DMX adapters (transmitters and decoders) that he builds into his products.  For the past 6 months I have working on keeping his inventory in order and developing a new product (random motion generator with speech to jaw motion decoding, voice modification and programmable delay - to synch the sound to motion).

    Here is a short snippet of random motions (this is an early version of the product, without the voice to jaw motion).

  • in reply to genebren

    Saw the 12 ft skelton at the Home Depot yesterday, your eyes look even better.

  • in reply to scottiebabe

    Looks like you've got your X-Ray results back Slight smile

  • in reply to beacon_dave

    lol Almost... Some of the stores have even more selection

  • in reply to scottiebabe

    There are some scary looking price tags there.

    Some of the animatronic movements though looked a bit more adventurous than you typically get with that sort of stuff.

  • in reply to beacon_dave

    If you bought the hobby parts form a local seller (vs noname china modules) it would be difficult to do it for a whole lot less.

    image

    Of course, if you have a stash of maker modules that you repurpose from project to project then for sure.

  • in reply to scottiebabe

    I was thinking more of what it would cost to decorate your house for Halloween with a selection of that lot.

    Some kinetic theatre type contraptions might work quite well for Halloween

    https://vimeo.com/sharmanka

    and a lot appear to be built out of random recycled mechanical parts.

    With the ease of access to 3D printing and cheap microcontrollers these days, then perhaps potential for some blending of the old and the new. 

Reply Children
No Data