Spooky Noise Box Has Post-Halloween Potential

September 5, 2023 by 8 Comments

There’s more than one way to scare people on Halloween. Sure, there’s always the low-brow jump scare, but that will generally just annoy the person and possibly cause a heart attack. No, what you need is a sustained soundscape of hellish audio. And where does one find hellish audio? Well, you make your own with a spooky-sounds noise box.

And no, we’re not talking about a soundboard that goes ‘boo’ and ‘ooo-OOO-oooh’ and whatnot. This is a full-on DIY instrument that has potential beyond Halloween. Essentially, the wooden box takes input vibrations from various doodads, and these vibrations are picked up by a piezo disk or two glued to the underside of the lid. The piezos are wired up to a 3.5 mm jack, which runs out to the PC and [SvartalfarQc]’s favorite Digital Audio Workstation (DAW). From there, it’s just a matter of playing around with the sounds — looping them, running them through various instrument voices, adding effects, and so on.

We love the the things that [SvartalfarQc] came up with, including a wind-up walking heart thing, a retractable badge holder, and that noise box mainstay, a sproingy doorstop.

We all know piezos are awesome, but have you ever considered that they can be used to digitize old wax cylinder recordings?

Robot Gets A Life-Sized Pokemon Costume For Halloween

November 12, 2022 by 3 Comments

Quadruped robots are everywhere now that companies like Boston Dynamics are shipping smaller models in big numbers. [Dave’s Armoury] had one such robot, and wanted to give it a Pokemon Halloween costume. Thus, the robot dog got a Jolteon costume that truly looks fantastic. (Video, embedded below.)

You would think that covering a quadruped robot in foam would ruin it, but somehow it didn’t stop it moving too badly at all.

The robot in question is a Unitree Go1, which [Dave] had on loan from InDro robotics. Thus, the costume couldn’t damage or majorly alter the robot in any way. Jolteon was chosen from the original 150 Pokemon as it had the right proportions to suit the robot, and its electric theme fitted [Dave’s] YouTube channel.

A  3D model of Jolteon was sourced online and modified to create a printable head for the robot application. Two 3D printers and 200 hours of printing time later, and [Dave] had all the parts he needed. Plenty of CA glue was used to join all the parts together with some finishing required to make sure seams and edges didn’t spoil the finish too much. Wood filler and spray paint were used to get the costume looking just like the real Pokemon. Continue reading “Robot Gets A Life-Sized Pokemon Costume For Halloween” →

Bike-Riding Skeleton Stalks The Streets On Halloween

November 11, 2022 by 11 Comments

Stationary pumpkins and motionless skeletons aren’t enough to scare people these days. If you want to really create a fright on Halloween, you need something more convincing. This bike-riding skeleton from [rc jedi] might just do the trick.

A few neat tricks make this impressive build surprisingly simple in nature. Propulsion is via a scrapped electric scooter drivetrain hidden in the sidecar. This not only propels the rig, but the third wheel means there’s no need to do any fancy balancing work to keep the bike upright. Steering is via a big chunky servo mounted to the bike frame which controls the handlebars. Regular RC gear handles remote control of the steering and drive.

The skeleton itself was an off-the-shelf buy, that was modified to have more flexibility in its joints. The hands were attached to the handlebars, and the feet attached to the pedals, so it appears to pedal the bicycle as it moves down the road. A dog skeleton rides along in the sidecar as a spooky companion.

A skeleton prowling the streets by BMX is a wonderfully spooky sight. We’ve seen some other great skeleton builds before, too, from the canine to the musical variety. Video after the break.

Continue reading “Bike-Riding Skeleton Stalks The Streets On Halloween” →

This Crosswalk Sign Costume Is A Halloween Hit

November 11, 2022 by 5 Comments

Halloween costumes can be anything from an expensive authentic recreation of a character’s garb, to a cheap knockoff bought from one of those overcrowded pop-up stores. Alternatively, you can get creative and conceptual about things, such as by building yourself a crosswalk sign costume.

The creation of [jared531], the build uses a large piece of cardboard painted black as the base. This sits behind the wearer, and is given a yellow outline to emulate the crosswalk signals common in the US. Red fairy lights are then laid out on half of the cardboard in a pattern emulating the “STOP” hand signal.

The wearer should then dress in all-black garb, and attach the flat cardboard panel to themselves with elastic straps. A black mesh face covering helps to complete the look by blending in the wearer’s face. They are then outfitted with white fairy lights around their body, emulating the “WALK” signal.

It’s a simple concept, but quite accurately replicates a typical crosswalk sign. It’s something we certainly haven’t seen before, which is impressive in this Internet era when anything new is old again mere minutes later.

If your tastes are more avant-garde, though, consider going the TV head route next year. If you’ve built your own high-tech, high-concept costume, hit us up on the tips line!

A wooden scary face dispensing candy through its mouth

Automatic Candy Dispenser Takes The Hard Work Out Of Halloween

November 10, 2022 by 5 Comments

Halloween may be behind us, but we couldn’t resist showing you [Mellow]’s latest project: an automatic candy dispenser that takes the hard work out of serving trick-or-treaters. It’s a cool build that might serve as an inspiration for next year’s Halloween project, or perhaps for a different occasion altogether: think birthday parties or Valentine’s Day. After all, when’s a bad time to give sweet treats to someone you love?

The basic concept is a scary face, made of wood, that disgorges a set amount of candy through its mouth after you press its nose. The dispensing mechanism is made from 3D printed mechanical parts as well as a piece of drain pipe. Candy is stored in the pipe, with a servo-operated flap releasing a set amount each time the nose is pressed. [Mellow] cleverly designed the flap to be somewhat flexible, so that it wouldn’t crush any candy bars that got stuck between it and the pipe.

A Wemos D1 Mini reads out the nose switch and drives the candy-dispensing servo, as well as a further two servos that swivel the eyes left and right for an additional visual effect. The original idea was to have the eyes swiveling all the time, but because the mechanism turned out to be quite loud [Mellow] changed the code to only move them during the candy-dispensing process.

We’ve seen several designs for automated candy dispensers over the years, ranging from a Jack-o-Lantern that holds enough candy to feed a small city, to a beautifully over-engineered machine more suitable as a Valentine’s Day gift.

Continue reading “Automatic Candy Dispenser Takes The Hard Work Out Of Halloween” →

Build This Halloween-Themed TensEGGrity Sculpture

October 21, 2022 by 5 Comments

Tensegrity sculptures are fun things, and often sold as office desk toys or scientific novelties. You can build your own too, and [seabirdhh] has whipped up a fun holiday-themed version.

The first part to build is the egg-hat-stand. This consists of the base of the structure, with the “hat” of the egg character hanging in the center. The other half of the structure is built separately, with the rest of the “egg head” sitting in a cup in the bottom of the upper structure. A series of nylon threads are then tied between the components. These can then be tensioned to give the structure its shape, allowing the egg’s “hat” to hover above its “head”. [seabirdhh] passes the nylon threads through small pieces of rubber that allow the tension to be adjusted just right. Too little and the structure falls down, but too much, and it will bend over time. Tuning it carefully is key.

It’s a fun build, and a cheap way to experiment with tensegrity concepts at home. You can even use these same techniques to build a quadcopter, or apply them in the world of LEGO. Video after the break.

Continue reading “Build This Halloween-Themed TensEGGrity Sculpture” →

Halloween Mirror Offers A Mighty Fright

August 16, 2022 by 22 Comments

Jump scares are controversial in the horror world, whether you’re talking about movies or video games. You can bring that same irritating thrill into real life, too, with this Halloween mirror from [jasonwinfieldnz].

During the day, or simply when it’s bright inside, the mirror appears normal, like any other. However, behind the special two-way mirrored glass surface is a spooky 3D print, such as a skull or an annoying yellow cartoon character. When the lighting level gets low, everything changes. A light-dependent resistor hooked up to a Digispark detects the change, and then fires up some 5V LEDs to light the scary image, revealing it behind the mirror. Even better, it plays a loud screaming sound with the help of a DFplayer MP3 module.

We’d love to see the concept taken even further, too. It would be quite something if, when a passer-by approached, the room lights suddenly cut out and the mirror activated in its full glory.

We’ve seen some great Halloween builds over the years. If you’re eager to get one out this season, you might wanna get hacking now! Video after the break.

Continue reading “Halloween Mirror Offers A Mighty Fright” →