What's the scariest thing you can think of? Spiders? Nope. Snakes? Not that either. Me? It's GLOOM HANDS. I don't generally shriek in terror but the first time I saw these things in Tears of the Kingdom, I ran away screaming. Both in the game AND in real life. Giant hands that you can't outrun that grab you and suck the life out of you? Biggest. Nope. EVER.
So what do we do when Halloween comes around? We share the scare.
It started with a question about whether or not one of our SparkX guys had ever cast anything in silicone and devolved into a geek-out session of epic proportions. As well as an in-depth discussion about the nature of reality, but I digress. As we were doing a company wide clean of the office (also TRES scary) I decided that I would use up as much old stuff as I could. Enter LilyTwinkles, LEDs, old speakers, dagu motors and robotics wheels, a couple of TB6612FNG motor drivers, and a bunch of de-soldered stuff I found in the e-waste.
Ta-DAAAA.
Scary, no? Here's a quick view of the base of the project...
I found an old tabletop and did a quick spray with black primer, then mounted the breadboard and Arduino Pro Minis before wiring it all up. The hands I ordered from Amazon and wired up a bunch of LEDs that I shoved up in them. They are controlled by the LilyTwinkles I found and attached to toy wheels which I then attached to the motors. An old sled covered it all (painted black) and red holiday lights peek out from underneath. Everything is powered either by LiPo or by a desktop power supply.
Not too shabby for a bunch of e-waste parts. I'm going to set it up on my front porch and scare the daylights out of all the little neighborhood kids so I can keep a bunch of my candy. YUM.
What are YOU hacking this Halloween?
