If you’re short on inspiration for your haunted house this year, you need look no further than this video by Terra of HalloweenForum.com showing the highlights of her visit to the 2009 annual TransWorld Halloween & Attractions Show. Highlights include a door that dents inward as an ax murderer apparently chops on it from the other side, a struggling victim chained in a box full of water, and giant vampire bats that swoop down from the ceiling.
This doo-dad is a telescoping PVC fitting sold as “Qwik Fix” or “Slip Fix.” It’s intended to be used to repair broken sections of pipe, but Chuck Rice has posted a venerable tutorial on converting one for use as a pneumatic piston in a haunted-house prop. Chuck’s design both lifts and turns with a single stroke. Clever!
Got a few switches and a pen? You can make a joystick, and if it’s a clicker-type pen, you can make a “fire” button atop the joystick as well!
Over at 0-60mag.com they have a 60+ paged PDF tutorial that shows you how to build an official Need For Speed SHIFT racing cockpit.
Install touch sensors into your favorite circuits using transistors.
I’ll give dollars to donuts that Jake Von Slatt owns a Yaris because he likes to say “YAAAAAAAAAAARis” in a pirate voice. Anyhoo, Jake was tired of the ‘Yota dealership hitting him for 50 bucks to replace the factory cabin air filter, so he hacked together his own from a $5 home A/C filter and wrote a good tutorial about how to do so yourself. Take that ye scallywags!
In front of the DRO is an array of lenses that allow for defocusing of the digits as they are shifted by the motor. This creates an unusual effect that can be implemented as desired in the programing. At this time the effect is randomized over the course of a single minute. The electronics clock is a real-time clock w/ battery so that when power is lost the time is retained.
