Oct 31, 2011 1:54 PM
DIY Halloween kits
BOO!
The LED pumpkin above is a Vellemen kit:
http://www.vellemanusa.com/products/view/?country=us&lang=enu&id=351279
It provides for some easy through-hole soldering fun. A couple transistors switch the LED brightness between a few levels to give a rough candle flickering effect. However, it is really not that realistic compared to those LED candles you can get everywhere nowadays. Rather than using RC time constants, it would be nice to throw a low-end microcontroller in there to give a nice, psuedo-random flicker via PWM. I think I'll have to try modding it next year. Anyway, for $12, I'd recommend the kit for beginners:
http://www.ramseyelectronics.com/cgi-bin/commerce.exe?preadd=action&key=MK145
However, I really liked Velleman's Animated Ghost kit (above):
http://www.vellemanusa.com/products/view/?id=522176
It senses noise with a built-in mic and then does random activities like play sound effects, glow its LED eyes or spin around using its small motor. It's about $10 more than the pumpkin:
http://www.ramseyelectronics.com/cgi-bin/commerce.exe?preadd=action&key=MK166
(image source: http://s1137.photobucket.com/albums/n506/IdeaPDish/)
A more advanced kit which will provide more of challenge is Ramsey's Tri-Field Meter (above):
http://www.ramseyelectronics.com/cgi-bin/commerce.exe?preadd=action&key=TFM3C
You can detect supernatural phenomenon in electrical, magnetic and RF fields. It definitely provided plenty of fun at our hackerspace party (Pumping Station: One in Chicago).
Cheers,
Drew