Anyone else "automate" their Halloween props/decorations and...

[AnthonyZ]

...have you already gone into prop building mode? With a mere 54 days left 'til Halloween, our home is pretty much in a frenzy. The inside of the house is already half done up as a tomb (this year) and I'm in full tilt prop building mode. I use HAI and Radio RA to "automate" much of our haunt and we do a full walk through of our haunted yard and garage. Last year we had 350 people come through and we have reason to believe that we'll double it this round. This year, I'm also adding a number of smaller props with both lighting, motion and sensor based detection using a few Arduino micro controllers.

 

[electron]

I love building this stuff, but the last 2-3 years, no more than 10 people showed up (rural area), so I called it quits last year Look forward to seeing more details on your hardware/props tho!

 

[BraveSirRobbin]

Wasn't there a website that had a lot of good ideas for DIY props, such as using a windshield wiper motor for a ghost, etc...?

 

[AnthonyZ]

Wasn't there a website that had a lot of good ideas for DIY props, such as using a windshield wiper motor for a ghost, etc...?

There are about a billion. The best starting point, IMHO, is HauntForum.com

 

[mustangcoupe]

I'd love to do this but too bad my city thinks they need to have trick or treat during the day.. (noon to 4 pm) what fun is that ?

 

[jwilson56]

It seems to be a dying trend these days... we get no kids on our street and I am not in a rural area...

 

[sic0048]

We live in a large neighborhood with lots of kids. But we live at the end of a cul-de-sac on a road with about 10 houses (so 5 on each side). It's amazing how many people stay on the main road and do not venture down the cul-de-sacs. We probably only see 2% of the kids walking on the main road.

[old person voice] Back in my day, we went to every house in sight. There was no skipping houses or streets. That was like throwing candy out the window [/old person voice]

 

[Steve]

Same here, years ago we had alot of kids and got good traffic and it was fun. Seems like lots of kids are grown and moved out or whatever and past few years have been slow. I still have my popup trash can which is fun (although most people except the newbs to the neighborhood already know about it) so its not a good scare anymore. So I pretty much gave up going crazy building stuff and decorating for a 1 night stand. So now I just still put out same tired graveyard and have fun with the kids. I'll dress up like Jason or some other scary looking dude (don't even need a mask for that!) and I take my weed trimmer (one of those that comes with the motor/half shaft and then attachments for bottom half) and I crank it up and run after people (Mom's too) while revving the motor. Sounds scary like a chain saw and works pretty well. That's usually alot more fun than spending hours and days building stuff for it to either rain or just have a dozen people see it. So I decided to put the effort into the holiday decorations.

This year I want to make a snow/ski village and have an automated skilift. Don't know even where to start on that so not sure its going to happen this year. At least you get a months use out of those and alot more people get to enjoy it.

 

[The Pod]

I automated my fogger with X-10 (details here). Most of the ligting and props turn on at Sunset and off at Sunrise (X-10 modules all set to H1). I have used LightShowMaster with my extra Insteon modules to create lighting effects outside.

Besides the HauntForum.com there is also the HalloweenForum.com. You can also check out www.halloweenmonsterlist.info for a bunch of how-to's when it comes to building Halloween props.

 

[mustangcoupe]

we get around 200 kids here but it is during the day so I guess I need more "hidden" type scares