It isn’t a unique idea, but we liked [Eric Wiemers’s] take on the classic animated skull for Halloween. In addition to showing you the code and the wiring, the video spends some time discussing what the audio looks like and what has to happen to get it into a format suitable for the Arduino. You can see the spooky video, below.
Of course, this is also a 3D printing project, although the skull is off-the-shelf. We wondered if he felt like a brain surgeon taking the Dremel to the poor skull. To fix the two parts of the device, he used brass threaded inserts that are heat set, something we’ve seen before, but are always surprised we don’t see more often.
Of course, the project uses a servo. We may have missed it but other than freezing the video, we didn’t see the Arduino source code online. It isn’t much code, though, so typing it from the video is an option. The schematic is a little easier to read when you realize the top part is the schematic and the bottom part is the “as built” layout.
We are glad this skull doesn’t taunt us with our time remaining like some we’ve seen. We’ve seen this done with fewer parts, by the way, and you can compare the videos to see how different the circuits respond.
Guybrush Threepwood: “You’re about as fearsome as a doorstop.”
Murray: “Is it a really evil-looking doorstop?”
I was hoping it had alexa in it like the talking fish.
I was just going to ask if it’s integrated with Google Assistant or Alexa in some way.
It’s not, but I can plug it into the audio jack on my phone and… Voila! Google or Alexa talking skull assistant.