started decorating for Halloween in
2010, and have two parties each
year with the largest often drawing
over 125 friends, family, and
neighbors. For our parties, I
wanted to turn on my haunt and
be able to enjoy the evening with
my guests. So, all our props are
independently operated using controllers I’ve
designed and built. With no actors, I never have to
worry about who or how many will show up,
whether they’ll stay in character and in their spot, or
wonder how much pizza and soda I need to have
on hand to keep them fed. I just turn everything on
at the beginning of the night and unplug it all when
everyone has gone home (Figure 1).
PIRATES, WITCHES,
AND GHOSTS ... OH MY!
Growing up in southern California, I was deeply
influenced by the Haunted Mansion and Pirates of
the Caribbean at Disneyland. We decided that our
haunt would be modeled after those attractions, and
would provide plenty of scary props but without
blood and gore. We felt we should leave that to
others that can do it so much better than we are
able to do.
Not one to do something half way, I jumped in
68 September 2014
Did you ever have that one house in your neighborhood that always went
the extra mile at Halloween? The "scary" house that you couldn't wait to
visit when the big night finally arrived? Well, as a kid, I did and I've always
wanted to create that atmosphere for the kids in our neighborhood that
provided just enough scare to be a thrill and keep them coming back year
after year.
FIGURE 1. An example of the complete brains
of one of my props.
We
Automating Your Haunt Using
PICAXE Microcontrollers
