It's Tuesday again! This week I am making a scary pumpkin. Nothing gory or disgusting, just something that will scare the kiddies and hopefully score me some candy. How? Well, I am glad you asked. I rummaged through my parts bins and came up with an idea. What if I connected a horn to an Arduino and let out a nice blast when someone came around trick-or-treating. Hopefully they are so scared they drop their bag-o-candy and run away, leaving me with plenty of treats. Note: It's a joke people! No, I am not taking candy from kids (other than my own). Have fun, and be nice! What you need: Aduino - Available in the Maker SHED ProtoShield - Available in the Maker SHED Wire Pumpkin - Real, plastic or foam 12Volt battery Car horn - $7 at local car shop or junkyard Buttons and/or switches LEDs - Any color, but I like orange Heat shrink tubing Tools you need: Soldering Iron Pliers Pumpkin cutting/carving supplies Glue gun Step 1: Cut up the pumpkin You can use a real pumpkin, but I picked this one up for $5 at a local craft store. Using a real one is fine, but photographing it over a few days can get messy so I decided to use a foam version. The foam pumpkins are really easy to carve. So far it looks like a classic, smiling, jack-o-lantern. The kids will never suspect anything. Step 2: Add the nose button I had an arcade game button, so I used it for the nose, and a old doorbell button I used to trigger the horn. You can use any button that you have in your scrap bin. Solder some wires to the "nose button" so you can assemble the electronics outside the pumpkin. Attach one wire to the ground of the Arduino and the other wire to pin (7). Also, you need an additional wire with a 10K resistor to ground. (See step 3 for a simple diagram) Speaking of Halloween, that is some scary soldering! Yuck. Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in DIY Projects | Digg this! Less