All across the country, parents are wondering what to do about the upcoming Trick Or Treat season. Measures such as social distancing, contact free treats, or simply doing it at home are all being weighed as a balance of fun and safety. [BuildXYZ] has decided to lean into the challenges this year and incorporate a mask as part of the costume for his boys.
It started with a 3d printed mask, printed in two halves, and sealed with silicon caulk and N95 filter material in the inlet and outlet holes on the sides. The real magic of the mask is the small OLED screen mounted to the front that works along with a small electret microphone inside the mask. By sampling the microphone and applying a rolling average, the Arduino Nano determines if the mouth drawn on the display should be open or closed. A small battery pack on a belt clip (with a button to flash “Trick or Treat” on the screen) powers the whole setup and can be easily hidden under a cape or costume.
This isn’t the first hack we’ve seen for Halloween this year, such as this socially distant candy slide. We have a feeling that there will be many more as the month rolls on and people start to apply their ingenuity to the season.
No one in America should be trick or treating this year. You’ll kill grandma!
I agree. Stay home please.
That said, this is just calling out to be paired with the animated eyes, like …..
https://www.adafruit.com/product/3356
I’m a big proponent of social distancing, but I don’t really see the problem with trick-or-treating. You’re social distancing more than you normally would, you’re wearing a mask that’s even more covering than the ones you normally wear, and the whole process is contactless!
If there’s one holiday that is covid-friendly, it’s Halloween.
I see masked characters like Vader becoming popular.
The battery requirements for this year’s costume are definitely greater than other years. That is all I will say at this moment. :)
id like to see some medieval plague doctors. such getup is likely covid proof.
With a long enough beak on that thing you can make sure people physically can’t get within 6 feet of you
Careful when you make your own mask that you don’t have a lot of air inside the mask.
Exhaled air is very high in CO2 (40,000-50,000 ppm). The bigger the volume inside the mask, the more of that old air you inhale next time, and the higher the average inhaled CO2.
Average breath volume in rest is only 500 ml, so mixing in 200 ml of exhaled air could result in average CO2 level of 16000 ppm, which could have negative physiological effects.
If you want to make a voluminous mask, make sure you fill up the dead space inside the mask with foam or something like that.
How do they avoid this problem with commercial respirators, which have quite a large amount of empty air inside?
It is a potential problem there as well, and in some cases CO2 can reach quite high values:
https://academic.oup.com/annweh/article/57/3/384/230992
Of course, it’s a little different matter for professional users who have been trained in their usage, compared to small children wearing unregulated masks, completely oblivious to potential dangers.
valves.
exhaled air gets a different path than inhaled air, and so you never have to breathe your own co2.
Well, the negative physiological effect is “getting out of breath and breathing harder”. If you have to choose a gas to breathe too much of CO2 is probably[1] the one to choose as that is the one that is directly detected by the ASICS.
[1] I am not a physiologist
I’d love to see this with a double sine wave like Bender’s mouth.