Robot Santa is mechanically complete but doesn't have the electronics yet.  I'm thinking of forming a singing trio with my other robots and taking them on tour.

My idea for the build-a-present is using the Arduino uno/nano to create a mood light box that you can play with your love ones and let them know how you're feeling. The tune will be mostly simple Christmas songs.

The device has two modes: the mood light mode and the game mode. The RGB leds are on top while the 8 x 8 led matrix is below. The winning tune is also a simple Christmas tune.

The mood light mode is the default mode when the device is turned on. It lights up a random RGB color as like any mood light nowadays. The special with this light is that you can set the color of the light for the first box and the second box lights up the same color. You can use this to set what your mood is through the color. It's a cute way of communicating with your love ones especially those that cant go out because of the pandemic. My initial thought is to use encoders for this to set the light but I'm thinking of another way of doing this.

The game mode is for playing games with another player with the box. I'm thinking of two games, one is the Arrow dance where you have to press the button corresponding to the arrow displayed by the led matrix as fast as you can. As the game progress, the faster the arrows changes. The last one to keep pressing the right button wins. The next game is the Build-a-pine-tree where the player lights up each led that will make pine tree. First to form a LED Pine tree wins.

Ooooooo the fun things you could do with a Robot Santa.   

Below is my design for Robot Santa from Futurama.  He is a four-ton robot built in the year 2801 to judge whether people were naughty or nice.  What could possibly go wrong?

I have had requests for other 3D printed items but they are all mundane compared to Robot Santa.

yes sir.  The LED for scaring deer looks kinda wimpy. I'm thinking to add some brighter ones, depending on how these work.  

The fun is in the building, but if you find something that works for that price - I'd be interested.  If nothing else, it might be fun to hack.

I had scribbled down the parts I thought I'd need to build a pest deterrent. In searching for parts online, I found modules already designed with adjustable frequency, PIR motion detect, LEDs, LiPo with solar recharge for $10.  I'm giving them a try in my backyard where the deer eat my deer resistant miniature evergreen trees. Hopefully the squirrels get blasted too. The ultrasonic emiters are alot bigger than the SR04. 

I actually like squirrels, other than the potential for carrying a rodent disease.  Our squirrel population is kept in check by coyotes and cars.

I don't mind the squirrels eating all the acorns as we have more than enough oak trees here in the suburbs.  They do tease the granddog, but she gets even by digging up all the nuts they bury in the yard.

I never realized that squirrels ate vegetables until I saw one sitting on the deck eating one of the pickling cucumbers.  We'd been noticing bite marks in the cucumbers and tomatoes, but thought it was one of the rabbits or mice.  I recently had a bunny living under our deck.  A little chicken wire solved the vegetable problem, but made harvesting a pain...

I've thought about building a creature deterrent because they drive the dog crazy (she's a Beagle).  Of course, there's a high probability that she will be bothered by the ultrasonics as well.  I have a couple of the HC-SR04s, so I could try it out.  Have you determined that  the squirrels react to the sensor?

You do have a wide variety of pests travelling through your backyard. Fortunately I only have cats, foxes and now squirrels. If you make something that works do please Blog it. Squirrels do not seem to have the same fear of humands as cats and foxes - I was out in the garden recently and saw a squirrel coming towards me on the fence so waved at it to go away and it just continued running towards me! Quite disconcerting.

Dubbie

Looks like the time of year for some merriment...  I have a partially built project that was interrupted by something that I've forgotten.  I have a slip ring with a servo mounted on a couple of geared discs.

I thought that I could try building a rotating ornament with lights and sound.   Maybe have it controlled by WiFi or BLE or something else (depending on what board I use).