Roomba and virtual walls make up this theme family Halloween costume

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It figures. You spend a ton of time making a cool set of costumes and then you can't get your kid to pose for a picture. It's okay though, we still get the point. This themed set of costumes dresses the little one as a Roomba vacuuming robot while mom and dad are suited up as virtual walls (modules that are used to keep the bot from falling down stairs, etc.). It's fun and unique, but had it not … [Read more...]

Happy Halloween!

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQGy1xanJvg Enjoy your Halloween and be safe. Keep reading for a thermite project preview. … [Read more...]

Halloween Props: Monster in a box

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This furry Halloween decoration proves to be a simple build, but it's still quite popular with the little ones. [Chris] had a Halloween party for a group of 2-5 year olds and this monster that peeks out of a box was a huge hit. The trick really isn't in the complexity of the build, but in the interactivity. The enclosure is just a shoe box which has been covered in synthetic black fur. The … [Read more...]

Halloween Props: Ghoul in the box puts on a pretty good show

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[Tim's] ghoul in the box project has all the elements of a classic Halloween prop. He built it for last year's display but we're sure it will be a perennial favorite. As the name implies, it's modeled after a Jack-in-the-box toy. Fittingly, it's decorated with bright, happy colors and includes a crank on the right side of the box. But you don't need any man-power to make it work. Hidden in the … [Read more...]

A collection of hands to inspire your Halloween animatronics

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Jump scares are a lot of fun, but if you want to hold the attention of all those trick-or-treaters we'd suggest a creepy prop. One of the best choices in that category is a ghoulishly lifelike hand. You can draw some inspiration from this roundup of robot hands which Adafruit put together. We've chosen four examples for the image above but there are more to be had than just these. In the upper … [Read more...]

OpenPLC, for industrial automation to Halloween displays

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Stepping out onto just about any factory floor you'll find complex automatons building anything and everything imaginable. These machines need to be controlled somehow and before the age of computers these manufacturing robots were controlled with relays wired together to produce a multitude of actions. Relays, no matter how reliable and bulletproof the are, can't be programmed without rewiring … [Read more...]

Halloween Props: a spooky mirror

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This mirror will spook your guests with a variety of static and animated images. It includes a proximity sensor so the images will not appear until someone comes close enough to see themselves in the looking glass. The electronic parts are quite easy to put together. There is a 32x32 RGB LED matrix mounted on the back of the mirror. It is driven by an IOIO board with some custom firmware … [Read more...]