Forum - Recent Threads

A Round-Up of Every Project | Halloween Hackathon 2025

JoRatcliffe — Wed, 12 Nov 2025 14:04:20 GMT

It is time for our Halloween project round-up! I wanted to give a mention to every project submitted so we can all appreciate everyone's hard work.

There have been so many fantastic submissions this year, a big thank you to everyone who shared their spooky projects, Halloween plans, and took part in the seasonal celebrations. If you have not yet seen every project, then this is your chance! Click through and take a look.

Halloween Motion-Activated Scare System

veluv01 created an automated scare system for Halloween. They used an ESP32-CAM compact camera module to stream video to a Raspberry Pi. The Raspberry Pi then used computer vision to detect victims and triggers terrifying sounds from a hidden Bluetooth speaker for a perfectly timed fright.

Ghost Projector

misaz created a Halloween trick for anyone entering a dark room using a microcontroller, motion, 4 addressable RGB LEDs, a LEGO brick box on a slight angle, and a sheet of paper. When it detects movement, the motion sensor triggers the four LEDs inside the LEGO box which take it in turn to light up and shine through the ghost pattern cut in the sheet of paper. This creates the illusion of the ghost moving, despite the project box staying in a fixed position. A great project with a great use of kit.

Haunting Eyes

meera_hussien added an ESP32-S3 microcontroller and two round GC9A01A displays to a 3D-printed skull – with a gesture sensor hidden in the nose – to create a spooky head with scary red eyes that follow movement and reacts with eerie sound effects.

The Vessel

Using an ESP32-S3 microcontroller, a 3.2-inch ILI9341 TFT display, and an HC-SR04 ultrasonic motion sensor, Hacktech created a motion-triggered haunted box which reacts to trick-or-treaters with warning messages, fog releasing from hidden vents, eerie noises, a servo-driven lid that shakes and bangs, plus suitably spooky lighting effects.

Automated Trick-or-Treating

foxbat built a ‘trick or treat’ machine with lights and sounds that trick-or-treaters can use to press play, choose whether they want a trick or a treat, and then either candy is dispensed or they receive a startling (but not lawsuit-inducing) trick. Check out this submission for its photos, videos, diagrams, plus an 18-page write-up attached covering all the details of the project.

Whispers of the Web

Donatus created a browser-based psychological horror experience, with whispers made to sound like they are coming from different directions and the player is prompted to type what they hear.

Haunted Mailbox

dougw made a mailbox look like it was haunted by adding high resolution TFT displays showing animated eyes that look around. A lawn art black cat was given red LED eyes that turned on when a PIR sensor detected someone approaching. Check out the full write-up for a video, a glowing pumpkin and @dougw’s work party costume.

Screaming Halloween Scary Mask

rsc added round Seeed Studio XIAO TFT displays with spooky eyes to a very scary mask. A motion sensor from a night light and a Raspberry Pi triggers a scary witch’s laugh which is well worth hearing, super spooky!

Halloween Crabby Crabapple Tree

With a build featuring an Arduino Nano, PIR sensor, ISD1820 voice recorder module, and LM386 audio amp, robogary brought a crabapple tree to life. The tree has plenty of attitude as it tells passersby and trick-or-treaters to stop treading on its roots.

Basement Dragons

Using four computer monitors, 3B+ Raspberry Pi’s, and dark garbage bags, colporteur was able to have two pairs of huge animated eyes peer out of his basement windows. Here be dragons!

SoulCage

vishalsoniindia created a wearable pendant which – using a Waveshare ESP32-S3 Round Display and a 3D-printed case – appears to have an animated soul trapped inside it and trying to escape. Their write-up contains plenty of detail and links to all the components for anyone inspired to make one themselves.

The Third Eye

me_Cris created a mysterious, animated eye using an 8x8 LED matrix, a head lamp housing, and an ATtiny85 microcontroller. The eye really comes to life in the dark and you can watch the eye look around its surroundings in photos and a video.

Great projects all round! With our round-up complete, it only remains for me to announce the winners on November 16th, so there is not long to wait now :)

If there are any updates on your project and you would like me to add anything to the description above, then just let me know.

Happy Halloween!

JoRatcliffe — Fri, 31 Oct 2025 18:07:53 GMT

Have a great night, everyone! Let us know what your plans are. I saw the new Frankenstein movie yesterday to get into the spirit of the season and I am ready with candy for trick-or-treaters tonight.

Well done to me_Cris and vishalsoniindia for posting the first projects of the competition! There's still plenty of time though before the competition closes on November 9th.

I also created an e14 pumpkin as promised. The 'e' was a little tricky but sellotape worked...ok and isn't too visible in the darkness. Next year I might be a little smarter, make a stencil and carve the top layer of the pumpkin but leave a thin, inner layer so the tealights can shine through it.

Competition Discussion Thread | Halloween Hackathon 2025

JoRatcliffe — Wed, 01 Oct 2025 12:47:36 GMT

It's time for the annual element14 Halloween competition!

I thought I'd create a space for general discussion on Halloween projects, your progress, challenges, and successes.

Plus, feel free to discuss any competition details here too. Don't forget the all-important deadline of November 9th. You can also send me a direct message if there is anything you would like to ask.

Happy building and wishing you all a happy Halloween in advance! 🎃🦇

Boo In A Box Contest Prizes

dougw — Fri, 18 Apr 2025 18:31:27 GMT

This is a quick video to show some of the prizes awarded for my Proverbial Black Box project:

https://youtu.be/1mOP3FsewNk

Hopefully the Raspberry Pi 5 will arrive soon so I can blog about it.

It (they) arrived - see the blog here.

New Halloween blog

dougw — Tue, 05 Nov 2024 00:19:22 GMT

I created a 2024 Halloween blog, but it didn't end up here, so here is a link:

The Proverbial Black Box

Friday Fright-Day

JackUla 🎃 — Fri, 11 Oct 2024 14:45:31 GMT

Hi all, I hope everyone participating is having an appropriately fun/fright-filled Friday depending on your preference for celebrating Halloween 😄

Well done to effendy for being the first to submit their Halloween project: a truly terrifying Squid Game Doll. There is still lots of time to work on your own project and I hope this helps inspire.

But wait, there's more! As additional inspiration, I also wanted to share this quick video of a creator who has brought to life the rat from Ratatouille on top of her own head for Halloween. Check it out right here.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by She Builds Robots (@shebuildsrobots)

I'll leave you all with a question, is Tim Burton's movie The Nightmare Before Christmas a Halloween film or a Christmas film?

2024's Halloween Competition has just begun!

JackUla 🎃 — Tue, 01 Oct 2024 15:13:54 GMT

Darkness falls across the land, the midnight hour is close at hand...It's the first of October which can only mean one thing, the element14 Halloween Competition is here!

This year's competition is taking inspiration from the viral trend of Boo Boxes, where creators build a box that contains a spooky surprise within. With this in mind, we are challenging everyone to build their own box incorporating electronics (and the Halloween spirit). Share your project for a chance to win a suitably spooky prize.

Check out the full details, dates and prize here - Halloween14 Competition 2024! - element14 Community

For those of you who haven't met me yet - hi, I'm Jack! I am helping out the team as element14's seasonal temp worker! I may just be a pumpkin with a tealight for a brain but I will do my best to answer any questions you might have 🎃

Halloween projects anyone?

battlecoder — Sun, 29 Sep 2024 15:29:06 GMT

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.

community.element14.com/.../7776.VID_5F00_29750426_5F00_100332_5F00_176.mp4

Open source and big retail electronics

colporteur — Tue, 15 Sep 2020 19:45:47 GMT

I received this post from Adafruit that I thought might be of interests to some community members. The post does a teardown of a commercial Halloween product using what appears to be open source technology. https://learn.adafruit.com/eye-shootout-contrasting-open-source-and-big-retail-electronics?view=all

I wanted a big boy toy for Christmas one year, so I included a pair of Adafruit eyes on Santa's list. I would recommend the product. The learning resource provided slonr is what encourages me to keep going back to Adafruit.