Hi everyone! My name is Cecilia Hillway and I like combining art and technology. Today I will be talking about how you can use the new MakeyBit Adventure Board to make some spooky Halloween projects.
For these projects, I chose to use the Microbit microcontroller with the MakeyBit.
The Makeybit is such a fun-looking board from the beginning, that I was very inspired to transform it into different Halloween characters.
Using a template I created of the Makeybit, I drew monster costumes for it to wear and colored them on the computer. The costumes can be made or printed on paper and placed on the Makeybit behind the microcontroller. If you are using something thicker, like cardboard, it’s better to leave a hole for the Microbit.
Once the Makeybit has its costumes you are ready to make projects with it.
For the first project I made, the Makeybit is wearing a Mummy costume (PDF), so I decided to make it come out of its sarcophagus and come to life. I used the packaging box that the Makeybit comes in as the sarcophagus. I added a drawing of a sarcophagus and then I added two micro servos. Here I am plugging them in to show you how they work. One of the micro servos opens up the box and the other one raises the Mummy from the box.
I press the button and I have a built-in delay so I can put the Mummy where it goes and close the lid. But here you see how it will open the lid and raise the Mummy. Here’s a closer look at the mechanisms. As you can see, I have the two servos. They go up and down. One is on the side so it will allow me to close the lid of the sarcophagus as much as possible. Here you can see the raising and lowering. By adding some props like tea lights that are dressed up to make them look like lit torches, I can give the Makeybit project some ambiance for the video that I took. Here’s him popping out, and here’s the final video.
The second project is the creation of Frankenstein’s monster(PDF). It is inspired by the scene in the classic movie where the monster comes to life. I wanted to integrate several things into my project, like the crazy knife switch that screams mad scientist and a pulley system that helps the gurney where the monster is lying to go up and down.
Once the switch is activated, a continuous rotation servo raises the gurney up to the ceiling where there’s going to be the Neopixel strip that is going to simulate the lightning for a while. The lightning is what brings the monster to life. Once the lightning show is done, the gurney is lowered. And at the very end, the monster comes to life by lighting his eyes up and the heart starts beating.
For project number three, I decided to turn the Makeybit into a bat(PDF). So the bat hangs upside down in different locations. You can see I mounted his wings with two different micro servos. One is mounted from behind and the other one is mounted from the front. That gives the wings a slightly different height. So when he gets activated (which I am going to turn him on). So when he gets activated, his wings open up and he makes a sound, and his eyes light up. You can see the light that is a Microbit version 2. That light tells you it is actively listening to the volume of the voice. Which right now I guess it is considered pretty loud. You can change the settings in the code to make it more or less sensitive to the sound.
Makeybit is mounted using twist ties that go through the holes and keep the Makeybit in place. Now he has a third twist tie by his feet and this is what allows me to mount him in different locations.
Three different creepy projects you can make with the MakeyBit. In the description below, we’ll have links to the templates and the code I used if you want to recreate these projects. Please share your creations online with the hashtag MakeyBit.
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