Schlagwort: Halloween Hacks

  • Make your scary Halloween pumpkin smart with the Plug and Make Kit!

    Make your scary Halloween pumpkin smart with the Plug and Make Kit!

    Reading Time: 3 minutes

    With Halloween just around the corner, we’ve got the perfect project to make your decorations more fun and interactive. All you have to do is take the Arduino UNO R4 WiFi and Modulino nodes included in your Plug and Make Kit to create an awesome jack-o’-lantern that will light up and cackle with evil laughter when someone walks by! 

    Connect it to Arduino Cloud and you’ll be able to check on it and even remotely trigger some spooky surprises. 

    This is an easy project that anyone can do, and we’ll walk you through the steps to make it happen.

    A step-by-step guide to make spooky super simple

    This project is a great introduction to making interactive things. You won’t just be setting up some store-bought props, you’ll be creating technology and bringing your pumpkin to life!

    To get started, you’ll need:

    • Plug and Make Kit (including UNO R4 WiFi, Modulino Pixels for the glowing eyes, and Modulino Distance to trigger the action when someone approaches)
    • An MP3 module and a small speaker for the creepy sounds
    • A microSD card to store your sounds (feel free to use the ones we provide, or record your own!)
    • A powerbank to keep everything running
    • A pumpkin (you can carve out a real one, or you can 3D print one like we did – using this model by Damien Dozias)

    The Modulino Distance sensor detects when someone approaches your jack-o’-lantern, and that’s when the magic begins. The Modulino Pixels light up the eyes, syncing with the spooky sounds played from the MP3 module. Everything is controlled with an UNO R4, and thanks to Arduino Cloud, you can even control the pumpkin remotely, change the sounds, and keep track of how many people you’ve scared.

    All the code and details are ready for you to download from Arduino’s Project Hub. We’ve also created a template that will help you set everything up quickly. This template automatically uploads the code to your UNO board and creates a custom dashboard so you can monitor and control your creation. Just follow the link to get started!

    Unleash your creativity!

    Sure to make a lasting impression on your trick-or-treating visitors, this project offers you the chance to have fun while actually learning a lot about electronics, coding, and the Internet of Things (IoT). 

    Why just buy interactive objects when making your own is so rewarding? So grab your tools, start building, and give your Halloween the high-tech twist it deserves!

    As always, we highly encourage you to customize the project with your own ideas: with the UNO R4 WiFi and Modulino nodes included in the Plug and Make Kit, you have all the tools you need.

    For example, you could use Modulino Buttons to change scary sounds locally, or make your scary jack-o’-lantern even smarter. It can check the weather from an online forecast and change the LEDs’ color to let you know if it’s going to rain, help you use your smartphone to monitor the temperature outside in real time via Arduino Cloud… and much more! 

    Be sure to share your scary creations with us: upload them to Project Hub or email creators@arduino.cc to get in touch. 

    The post Make your scary Halloween pumpkin smart with the Plug and Make Kit! appeared first on Arduino Blog.

    Website: LINK

  • Brew virtual potions by mixing ingredients in this interactive cauldron

    Brew virtual potions by mixing ingredients in this interactive cauldron

    Reading Time: 2 minutes

    The large, bubbling cauldron is a classic mainstay in our Halloween decorations as it evokes imagery of devious witches and their mysterious concoctions. Fed up with this being a mere display piece, element14 Presents’ Katie Dumont created an enchanted cauldron that allows visitors to brew their own digital potions from an array of distinct ingredients using a whimsical “wand” and NFC-tagged bottles.

    To test her idea of mixing ingredients, Dumont began by connecting an Adafruit NFC reader to an Arduino UNO Rev3 along with a strip of RGB LEDs. The code she wrote checks which NFC tag is present every second, and depending on the color, will either add another color or increase/decrease the overall brightness. After the special wand tag has been detected, each pixel along the strip is mixed into a shared, uniform color across all of them.

    Upon the heels of this successful experiment, Dumont included another layer of interactivity in the form of a small game where players are presented with a certain color and must try to use the potion bottles to replicate it as close as possible with only red, green, and blue inputs. After selecting a sequence of three colors, tapping the wand will display the result and either flash red or white to indicate failure or success, respectively.

    To see more about how Dumont designed her cauldron, you can read the build log here and watch her demo video below!

    [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IVR5gGOTfvs?feature=oembed&w=500&h=281]

    The post Brew virtual potions by mixing ingredients in this interactive cauldron appeared first on Arduino Blog.

    Website: LINK

  • The Treat Trough of Terror spits out Halloween candy

    The Treat Trough of Terror spits out Halloween candy

    Reading Time: 2 minutes

    We’re only a few short weeks away from Halloween and that means we’re starting to see the creative projects that makers come up with to celebrate the holiday. Movement, lights, and sound effects are the name of the game when it comes to Halloween decor and the Treat Trough of Terror is the perfect example.

    Gord Payne’s Treat Trough of Terror is a fun and unique way to doll out candy to the kids on Halloween while practicing social distancing. Payne can stand on his front stoop and when a trick-or-treater comes along, he can drop candy down the chute to their eager little hands. To turn that into a fun experience, the chute passes through a decorative jack o’ lantern. As the candy slides down the chute, the whole thing lights up and places spooky sound effects.

    The chute itself is just PVC pipe cut in half lengthwise and resting on a patio chair. The lights are WS2812B LEDs driven by an Arduino Nano board. The Arduino also controls the sound effects played by a small MP3 player module, with audio output going to a pair of powered speakers. An ultrasonic sensor detects the candy as it slides past on the chute, which tells the Arduino to activate the light and sound effects.

    [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUjkn2-ibGI?feature=oembed&w=500&h=281]

    If you want to hand out candy while maintaining at least six feet of distance, this is the perfect project to work on over the next few weeks.

    The post The Treat Trough of Terror spits out Halloween candy appeared first on Arduino Blog.

    Website: LINK

  • Huge LED globe becomes Halloween helmet

    Huge LED globe becomes Halloween helmet

    Reading Time: 2 minutes

    Some Halloween costumes are creepy, others are racy, and a few, like this one, are just plain cool. LEDs have been common since the 1960s, but they can still stand out when done well. As it turns out, one way to achieve that is by arranging 378 of them around a big globe and wearing that globe on your head like Redditor HGRDOG14 did for Halloween this year.

    We’re hesitant to call this a “Halloween mask” because of its sheer size, but “enormous glowing Halloween helmet” doesn’t have the same ring to it. HGRDOG14’s creation started as a 24” beach ball. They then covered that in papier mâché to create a rigid shell and removed the original beach ball. After that, they covered the papier mâché sphere in strips of WS2812B individually addressable RGB LEDs. Those strips have 30cm spacing between LEDs and HGRDOG14 staggered each longitudinal strip in order to arrange the LEDs in the pattern you see.

    Every one of those 378 LEDs got a 3D-printed hexagonal cap to diffuse the light. An Arduino Nano controls all of the LEDs as a single strip with one data pin, though power comes from three separate battery packs that are necessary to handle the current at full brightness. A 16-button keypad lets HGRDOG14 switch between different animations and effects created using the FastLED library. 13 of those buttons correspond to different effects, while buttons 15 and 16 adjust the LED brightness (button 14 is unused).

    When turned on and running animations, this Globe Head is quite a thing. HGRDOG14 omitted two hexagons on the front for eye holes and there is a seam on the back, but otherwise it is an unbroken sphere of blinky LED goodness. It’s great for Halloween, but is also perfect for EDM concerts the rest of the year. You can see it in action here.

    The post Huge LED globe becomes Halloween helmet appeared first on Arduino Blog.

    Website: LINK

  • Interactive Halloween costume lets passersby play Wordle

    Interactive Halloween costume lets passersby play Wordle

    Reading Time: 2 minutes

    You’re probably already familiar with the game Wordle — it was a hit in 2021 and then took the world by storm when The New York Times purchased it in 2022. The gameplay is simple to understand, but still challenging. Players have to identify a word through trial and error by making guesses to identify matching letters and letter positions. Ches’ Halloween costume called “Hallo Wordl” lets passersby play a physical version of the game.

    Hallo Wordl’s gameplay is similar to standard Wordle, except that the words are all spooky. Those can include words like “ghost” or “foggy.” There doesn’t seem to be any dictionary checking, so players can enter a string of characters that isn’t a real world. But that isn’t a big deal when this mostly acts as an icebreaker for Halloween parties. Players can enter their guesses using a small 12-button keypad through T9-style typing (though there is no predictive text). That might stop gen-z from playing Hallo Wordl, but it provides a much more compact and affordable interface than a full keyboard.

    The game board displays on two 32×32 RGB LED matrix panels from Adafruit. An Arduino Mega 2560 controls the matrices using Adafruit’s GFX, Matrix Panel, and BusIO libraries. To generate a seed for randomly selecting a word, the Arduino polls one of the analog pins that doesn’t have anything connected and is therefore “floating.” Power comes from a 2200mAh 3s LiPo battery pack, which is good for around four hours of use. The components fit inside of a tombstone-shaped, 3D-printed enclosure that Ches can wear on his chest. 

    Ches already tried Hallo Wordl at a pre-Halloween event and reports that it was a success.

    The post Interactive Halloween costume lets passersby play Wordle appeared first on Arduino Blog.

    Website: LINK

  • This jack-o’-lantern farts pumpkin spice whenever someone gets close

    This jack-o’-lantern farts pumpkin spice whenever someone gets close

    Reading Time: 2 minutes

    Halloween is just a week away and that means two things: jack-o’-lanterns decorating front stoops around the world and the sudden proliferation of pumpkin spice-based products. Pumpkin spice isn’t a spice made from pumpkin, but rather a spice used in pumpkin pies. As we all know, farmers harvest pumpkin spice from pumpkin farts. That inspired The Man Cave YouTube channel to build this jack-o’-lantern that toots pumpkin spice whenever someone gets close.

    The Man Cave wasn’t able to acquire a real farting pumpkin (Starbucks keeps those under lock and key), so they were forced to build an artificial recreation that expels Febreze pumpkin spice-scented air freshener. They started by carving a jack-o’-lantern from a mundane, non-flatulent pumpkin. That got a face with an expression that conveys the general sentiment of “sorry about my delightfully aromatic gas.”

    The jack-o’-lantern’s eyes are just the right size to allow an ultrasonic sensor to peek through, which is how it detects the presence of a person. An Arduino Uno board monitors the ultrasonic sensor and activates a small servo motor when it sees movement. The servo arm pushes down on the Febreze canister’s button, causing a cloud of pumpkin spice-scented gas to emit from the jack-o’-lantern’s rear. 

    Boards:Uno
    Categories:Arduino

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    Website: LINK

  • Gigantic pumpkin dispenses candy at the push of a button

    Gigantic pumpkin dispenses candy at the push of a button

    Reading Time: 2 minutes

    Gigantic pumpkin dispenses candy at the push of a button

    Arduino Team — October 21st, 2020

    YouTuber Brankly is going to be giving out candy in style this Halloween. Or, more accurately, his automated pumpkin system is going to take care of the task for him.

    His large fake jack-o’-lantern sits atop a hilariously smaller skeleton body, and hides inside a servo-driven turntable dispensing mechanism. As it rotates, treats are pushed out of a tongue-like slide mechanism, where it’s detected by two infrared sensors. This detection stops (and reverses) the dispensing plate, while the bowl in front illuminates.

    Sounds and lighting are recycled from the modified bowl and pumpkin assembly, and LEDs under control of an Arduino Nano are added to a large button box that starts the cycle. Another Nano runs the rest of the setup, along with a stepper driver board and voltage regulator on a custom PCB.

    More build specifics can be found on GitHub.

    [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNeSOPg2tVk?feature=oembed&w=500&h=281]

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    Website: LINK

  • Dad-daughter MechWarrior suit ready for trick-or-treating

    Dad-daughter MechWarrior suit ready for trick-or-treating

    Reading Time: < 1 minute

    Dad-daughter MechWarrior suit ready for trick-or-treating

    Arduino Team — October 31st, 2018

    The idea of a mechanized walking suit to carry you around seems like a great idea, but having a practical leg assembly for it is still a futuristic concept. As seen here however, if you’re still a kid, you might be able to get your dad to carry you around in a custom suit fashioned after a MechWarrior vehicle.

    The suit is beautifully designed by creator Gridlock Cosplay, and features an Arduino-powered control system. This allows the little pilot to command the mech’s human “engine” via a joystick and system of lights. The suit also features exterior and interior lights, a pilot cooling fan, spinning “radar” assembly, retractable pilot cage, and of course a cell phone holder in the padded engine compartment.

    [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rCpMaoVx4uY?feature=oembed&w=500&h=281]

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    Website: LINK

  • Automate Halloween with the Stack-O-Lantern memory game

    Automate Halloween with the Stack-O-Lantern memory game

    Reading Time: < 1 minute

    Automate Halloween with the Stack-O-Lantern memory game

    Arduino Team — November 1st, 2017

    While Halloween has come and gone, it’s not too early to start brainstorming for next year’s jack-o’-lantern hack. Perhaps you’re thinking about lighting a pumpkin with an Uno-powered array of LEDs, or activating a shield to play scary recorded noises. If, however, you’d like inspiration for something more involved, the New Scientist team’s Arduino-controlled nine-pumpkin rig shows off lots of creative ideas.

    The system holds candy in a hacked cereal dispenser, which is released through a long clear plastic tube. But instead of giving away treats for free, it’s activated by an interactive memory game involving four pumpkins on the sides of the assembly.

    Trick-or-treaters must tap each pumpkin’s aluminum foil switches in sequence. If replicated in the correct order, they are rewarded with candy. If not, visitors are “treated” to a spray of silly string!

    You can read more about New Scientist‘s project in this article, and see it in action below!



    This entry was posted by Arduino Team on Wednesday, November 1st, 2017 and is filed under Arduino, Featured. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

    Website: LINK