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A few weeks back, we announced a new contest - the SparkFun Hack-o-Lantern competition. We challenged our customers to hack a pumpkin with electronics and create a fresh take on the tired tradition of Halloween jack-o-lanterns.
The prizes are as follows:
1st Place: $50 SparkFun credit
2nd Place: $40 SparkFun credit
3rd Place: $30 SparkFun credit
2nd Place: $40 SparkFun credit
3rd Place: $30 SparkFun credit
With that said, we are pleased to announce the winners of the first SparkFun Hack-o-Lantern Contest!
Third Place: The Self-Powered Illuminated Pumpkin
This pumpkin was submitted by Chris Coulston and brings home our third place price. Using the basic principles of a potato clock, this pumpkin employs zinc and copper plates to harness the natural power of the gourd, lighting up two clevely placed LEDs. Well done, Chris!
Second Place: The Pie of Sauron
The aptly named Pie of Sauron (from the Lord of the Rings "Eye of Sauron") submitted by Richard Kline features a Sovtek OG-4 dekatron counter and a YS-610 dekatron tester to create a very cool eye effect. Coupled with some rather skillful pumpkin carving, the Pie of Sauron takes home the 2nd place prize. Awesome job, Richard!
First Place: The Silly String Hack-o-Lantern
This amazing pumpkin submitted by Eric Kingston is a multi-tiered project. It features an Arduino Pro Mini coupled to an IR sensor. When the IR sensor detects the presence of a person in front of the pumpkin, it triggers a standard servo motor that is rigged to a can of silly string. The pumpkin then launches a stream of string at its hapless victim before letting out a loud chuckle. The whole unit is wired to tweet the number of "victims" it has had (follow the hackolantern here). This is an amazing project and definitely worthy of our first place prize! Congrats Eric!
Thank you to everyone for your submissions! Have a great and safe Halloween!
This amazing pumpkin submitted by Eric Kingston is a multi-tiered project. It features an Arduino Pro Mini coupled to an IR sensor. When the IR sensor detects the presence of a person in front of the pumpkin, it triggers a standard servo motor that is rigged to a can of silly string. The pumpkin then launches a stream of string at its hapless victim before letting out a loud chuckle. The whole unit is wired to tweet the number of "victims" it has had (follow the hackolantern here). This is an amazing project and definitely worthy of our first place prize! Congrats Eric!
Thank you to everyone for your submissions! Have a great and safe Halloween!
Wow, sorry about those links and thanks for bringing them to my attention. Should be fixed now.
The correct link for the third place entry is: http://ecse.bd.psu.edu/~csc104/pumpkin/pumpkin.html
The link for the potato clock has some extra text attached to it
to bad the AVR of the silly string hack-o-lantern got fried.
anyway great job on the pumpkins
As it turned out, the AVR didn't actually get fried. I just had to burn a new bootloader on it, and it's back to normal - yay! Since I don't own a programmer, I just used the bitbanging technique from another Arduino.
Congrats winner! great job!
Great! Nice work...both them.
Ah, the Third Place link is wrong: http://http//ecse.bd.psu.edu/~csc104/pumpkin/pumpkin.html