There’s not much time left now. If you’re going to put something together to give the youngsters some night terrors in exchange for all that sweet candy, you better do it quick. This late to the game you might not have time to do anything too elaborate, but luckily we’ve come across a few quick Halloween hacks that can get you some pretty cool effects even if it’s only a few hours before the big night.
As a perfect example, these LED “blinking eyes” were created by [Will Moser]. Using nothing more exotic than some bare LEDs, an Arduino, and a cardboard box, these little gadgets can quickly and easily be deployed in your windows or bushes to produce an unsettling effect after the sun goes down. Thanks to the pseudorandom number generator in the Arduino code, the “eyes” even have a bit of variability to them, which helps sell the idea that your Halloween visitors are being watched by proper creatures of the night.
The hardware side of this project is very simple. [Will] takes a container such as a small cardboard box and cuts two holes in it to serve as the eyes. He notes that containers which are white or reflective on the inside work best. You’ll want to get a little artistic here and come up with a few different shaped sets of eyes, which is demonstrated in the video after the break. Inside each box goes a colored LED, wired back to the Arduino.
For the software, [Will] is using a floating analog pin as a source of random noise, and from there comes up with how often each LED will blink on and off, and for how long. Both the hardware and software sides of this project are perfect for beginners, so it might be a good way to get the Little Hackers involved in the festivities this year; if you’re the type of person who enjoys replicating small humans in addition to creeping them out.
LEDs seem to be the hacker’s decoration of choice come Halloween, from wearable LED eyes to remote controlled illuminated pumpkins.
Shooting birds with cannons.
20 minutes of blinking LED’s – what a waste of bandwidth – worth 20 seconds max
I thought this was another one of those snarky comments. But holy shit… it’s actually 20 minutes of blinking LEDs.
I just recorded until the camera decided it had seen enough, this way everyone is catered for, except those who want to watch it for more than 20 minutes.
Could’ve been done with an NE555. Or two transistors, a few resistors and capacitors.
Could have been done with fire, a steam engine, some mechanical gears.
Could have been done with a roundhouse by CHUCK NORRIS!
I only came here to make sure someone mentioned a slightly less complex way of achieving this.
At least give us pin out to refer to for the arduino?
Between the photo and the code you should be able to work it out.
No FPGA???
Well at least they’re opto-isolated…
Looks like something from Instructables!
Y u no use raspberry pi?!
Because an Arduino is already about 1 millions times over kill for such a thing. A Pi seriously? using the computing power that those of us on the web in the early 2000’s used to browse the web to blink a damn led? Of course you need that kind of power to blink a damn LED with the bloated POS that is Python
Finally a project that I was actually able to do. I thank you, my Daughter thanks you and furthermore the kids in the street thank you.