Make: Online: Halloween Archives

Archive: Halloween

November 6, 2009

Make: Halloween Contest 2009 - WINNERS!

We had a great contest this year, with tons of awesome projects, and frankly we had a heckuva time picking winners. But the votes are all in now, and with the scores finally tabulated, I am pleased to announced the winners of the Make: Halloween Contest 2009.

The envelope please....

Third runner-up: Everett Bradford's "Prometheus Device"

Everett has won an F1 Evaluation Platform (valued at $39.99), plus a $50 Maker Shed gift certificate.

Second runner-up: Eric Kingston's "Silly String Shooting Pumpkin"

Eric has won a PICKIT 3 (valued at $69.99), plus a $50 Maker Shed gift certificate.

First runner-up: Ian Fagan's "Ghostbusters Proton Pack"

Ian has won a PICDEM Lab (valued at $124.99), plus a $50 Maker Shed gift certificate.

Grand Prize Winner: Jared Martin's "Mr. Bones and the Gourditos"

Jared has won a Microchip Starter Kit Bundle (valued at $600.00) which includes a PIC18 Starter Kit, a PIC24F Starter Kit, a dsPIC DSC Starter Kit, a PIC32 Starter Kit, a Memory Starter Kit, an F1 Evaluation Platform, and a PICKIT 3.

Congratulations to all our winners and, indeed, to everyone who entered! And thanks to our sponsor, Microchip Technology, for making the whole thing possible!

Happy Halloween!

Two-person AT-AT costume

From Photobucket user 8jarjar8, this video of a Chinese-lion-dragon style AT-AT costume with lighted cheek-lasers. Don't really know anything about the makers/wearers. Anybody with info, please feel free to comment. [via Geekologie]

November 5, 2009

Halloween on Berkeley's Russell Street

Our very own Michelle Hlubinka, MAKE's Educational Director, is quoted in this Daily Californian piece about the celebtrational insanity of Russell Street, in Berkeley, known for it's elaborate decorations and large, costumed crowds.

Below is one of the yard decorations Michelle's family put together. Their theme was "Attack of the Killer Tomatoes." I love the Dixie cups for monster teeth.

Halloween Revelers Flock to Russell Street

Adorable stoplight costume

David King built this stoplight costume for his oldest daughter. It's his first Arduino project. Besides flashing the expected red, green, and yellow lights, it incorporates an Adafruit WaveShield to play music. [Thanks, David!]

In the Maker Shed:

Arduino WaveShield Kit

November 4, 2009

Kid robot

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Amazing robot costume with an Arduino, MAKE Game of life kit and WaveShield! jerrya writes...

My wife and I are making a robot Halloween costume and I just finished the electronics design prototype. I wanted to wait until the costume was finished before revealing it but I'm too excited that I finished my circuit and coding. That's a video of it, and I want to describe it a little. It uses an Adafruit Wave Shield for the sounds, and an antique analog gauge I found at Gateway Electronics here in St. Louis. There's an infrared beam pair from Sparkfun, which will be watching the "candy input slot" on the robot's chest. The gauge displays the count, until too much candy is inserted and it goes crazy. Then after 20 seconds of no more candy, the candy count gets reset, to be ready to do it all over again at the next house. In the sketch, I used these AlphaBeta libraries: LED, button, TimedAction, and Scheduler. These made coding this sketch very easy. He even updated Scheduler with a clear() for me. Thanks again for that! The hardest part was getting it all to work together. I had been trying to use pin 9 for the gauge, and it crashed the sketch. I did more reading and found out you can't do PWM on 9 with the Wave libraries because of the timer. Pin 6 works fine though. The beep sound loop I found on my mac, I think it came from iMovie. The speech is recorded synthesis also from my mac, made like this from a terminal: say -o outputfile.aiff "thing to say" This makes an aiff file. Then I used iTunes to convert all the sound files to WAV with the right settings for the Wave Shield. The chaser LEDs are going to surround the Arduino in a shadow box sort of thing, so people can see the controller, and to punch it up so it isn't so boring. ;D

Detail shots of the electronic components in the robot costume my wife and I built. She did all the painting and papercraft, and I did the electronics. Systems include an Arduino with Adafruit Wave Shield for sound effects, and a proto shield that you see with all the wires and resistors. They are wired to the antique analog gauge on the front panel, which reacts to the IR pair from SparkFun in the Input slot. The speech is recorded synthesis from my Mac. Sayings are: "Candy, my favorite fuel," "Yum yum yum...," "You will be spared from the robot uprising, thank you human," and "Warning! Candy overload!" And on the front panel just for eye candy is a Game of Life kit from the Maker Shed/Adafruit.

WoW spellcaster costume with health and mana bars

Eric Lowry built this sweet WoW magic-user costume for his son. It has LED health and mana bars, LED magic power in the gloves, and an LED, er, "touch-sensitive fairy companion." There's one Arduino for the gloves and status bars, and another for the companion.

Transformers Soundwave costume

Pretty amazing costume build tutorial from Instructables user Incrxtc.

November 3, 2009

Functioning X-men "Pyro" costume flamethrower appliance

OK, my awesome meter has kind of overloaded on this one. Everett Bradford's "Prometheus Device" is a hand-mounted appliance that shoots, like, real fire. It looks, you know, dangerous, and all, but it's so cool I don't really care. And he's done a great job documenting the build, although obviously no one should attempt this who doesn't know what they're doing. Amazing work, Everett. Thanks!

Make: Halloween Contest 2009

There's still time left to enter the Make: Halloween Contest 2009! Deadline is 11:59 PM PST, November 3rd. Show us your embedded microcontroller Halloween projects and you could be chosen as a winner.

Alien twins life support system haunt prop

John Russell made this fantastic haunted house prop. In his own words:

Two aliens contained in suspended animation chambers. A central control unit monitors and sustains life support functions. The control screen is a looping flash animation. Every few minutes, a malfunction state is triggered. Sound and graphics announce the error, and a Make Controller board is used to trigger emergency flasher lights and a fog machine (simulates a cryogenic coolant leak).

The video shows the system going into its "malfunction state." Awesome work, John!

Make: Halloween Contest 2009

District 9 SPLAT gun replica prop

Instructables user msraynsford presents this detailed tutorial on how to build a prop replica of one of those District 9 guns that makes intelligent, loving, civilized creatures explode with a nauseating SPLAT. I want one!

November 2, 2009

Big Head Mode papercraft costume

Eric Testroete, a 3D character artist from Vancouver, sent us this awesome self-portrait costume, an homage to Big Head Mode in videogames.

Papercraft Self Portrait - 2009
Eric's Flickr set

Make: Halloween Contest 2009 - Last call!

Halloween may have come and gone, but there's still 24 hours to get your entries in to our Make: Halloween Contest 2009! We want to see your embedded microcontroller Halloween projects! All you have to do is fill out the form.

Make: Halloween Contest 2009

Low Resolution

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Add this one to clever makeup-based Halloween costumes.. "Low Resolution"...

A Halloween souvenir

Last Friday night, this piece of "blood"-soaked "meat" (which is, I think, actually some kind of dyed latex product) was smeared roundly about my face and neck by a large man, who may or may not be named "Thor," dressed as a butcher, at the 2009 annual Scare for a Cure haunted house, held ~~each~~ this year at the palatial Austin estate of video-game entrepreneur Richard Garriott, aka Lord British. I paid a couple of extra bucks for the special glowing red chemiluminescent necklace that identified me as amenable to the "extreme," full-contact version of the experience, and I'm so glad that I did.

My friend, Christie, got about a bucket of "blood" "vomited" onto her head by a ceiling-mounted ghoul, and came out looking like Carrie on prom night. I saw it happen, and the moment is frozen for me like a scene from a Dario Argento movie: Christie's blond locks, suffused by a pale, flickering, blue-green backlight, her mouth slightly open as she looks up, laughing, into the torrent of black, sticky ichor that tumbles, in exaggerated slow motion, onto her face. In my mind's eye, I can still see my own gaping mouth reflected in a small, spherical droplet of that blood as it spatters across space and time. I think that droplet will be falling, in my memory, for many years to come.

Thanks to all the volunteers who worked so hard to make this such an incredible event. If you missed it this year, go mark your calendars now.

Make: Halloween Contest 2009

There's still time left to enter the Make: Halloween Contest 2009! Deadline is 11:59 PM PDT, November 3rd. Show us your embedded microcontroller Halloween projects and you could be chosen as a winner.

Mario costume with integral sound-effects

Really sweet Mario costume with built-in classic sound-effects from Adafruit forum member djmacatack. It uses an Arduino with an Adafruit WaveShield. [Thanks, Becky!]

Make: Halloween Contest 2009

November 1, 2009

Pac-Man pumpkins

Reader Dave Adams submitted this cool Pac Man pumpkin display, complete with ghosts, dots, and fruit. Shown immediately above under regular and UV light. [Thanks, David!]

Make: Halloween Contest 2009

There's still three days left to enter the Make: Halloween Contest 2009! Deadline is November 3rd. Show us your embedded microcontroller Halloween projects and you could be chosen as a winner.

October 31, 2009

Happy Halloween from MAKE

We hope you have a monstrously great Halloween and that you've had fun making costumes and home haunt decorations. If you did, please take pics and post them to the MAKE Flickr Pool.

Be safe, have fun, and may your treats be many and your tricks be few (unless, of course, you're doing the tricking).

Your pals at Maker Media

Illustration by Seth, done for our Halloween special issue

Mark Frauenfelder on NPR's Science Friday

Mark, MAKE's Editor-in-Chief, was on NPR's Science Friday yesterday, talking about how to "Geek Your Halloween." You can hear the broadcast here.

Photo and pumpkin carving by Patrick Murray.

Anatomy suit one-piece zombie costume

Well, OK, I think it's really three pieces. But the head and body are a single piece which eliminates the neck seam and makes the effect way more realistic. Then each hand/forearm is one piece, but those seams are concealed by the tattered shirt. A commercial product from TheHorrorDome.com. [via Boing Boing]

Make: Halloween Contest 2009

Microchip Technology Inc. and MAKE have teamed up to present to you the Make: Halloween Contest 2009! Show us your embedded microcontroller Halloween projects and you could be chosen as a winner.

Quick and easy pumpkin cutter

From the MAKE Flickr pool Mark of Spikenzie Labs shares this simple recipe for a pumpkin cutter using a scroll saw blade and some duct tape. Looks like a good choice for those intricate/curved designs.

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