Please see my website Code Club Adventures for more coding materials.
Moved from https://github.com/danielbloy/pico-interactive/halloween/2024
My daughter loves Halloween and after Halloween 2022 (she was 8 years old at the time) we discussed using some of the electronics that I use in my Coding Clubs to make our house more interactive with sounds and lights. I agreed to this because how hard could it possibly be? Well it turns out it was a massive undertaking and very stressful! But she loved it and that was all that mattered.
Once over, we decided to go bigger for 2024 and fix a number of the issues we had with the 2023 setup. As I knew it'd be a bunch of work I started earlier (March 2024). It was still really difficult to get it all done on time but did look even more impressive. Yes, she was happy again! The work done for 2024 was implemented in a fashion to make it generic and reusable for lots of projects. The full library is available at https://github.com/danielbloy/pico-interactive.
For 2025 we are going bigger again. Yes, I'm starting even earlier. Janaury! The main change here is to hardwire as much as possible to make the entire house look like a single installation that works together. It'll be awesome.
These video don't quite do it justice but its good enough to get an idea of what the finished projects look like.
Halloween 2023 video on YouTube
Halloween 2024 video on YouTube
The full code for Halloween 2023 can be found at https://github.com/danielbloy/pico-interactive-origins.
In 2023, all nodes (apart from the coordinator) were battery powered. This offered great flexibility as to positioning but required a lot of batteries and meant the whole system could not easily be turned off (or on) with a single switch. For 2024, I am looking for more mains powered distribution.
Sensors Separate boxes for sensors to make the entire system automatic. It mostly worked.
Spiders
This is something that was prototyped for 2023 but we ran out of time to implement. In essence, a node controled LEDs that are drilled into the eyes of some spiders and made to pulse on command. However, the final implementation reused a lot of parts from the 2023 path nodes and used NeoPixels and a 3D printed holder that projected eyes and lines onto glow-in-the-dark spiders. It was very effective.
Projector
This was really easy to add and very effective.
TV
This was used as an attract with blinking eyes. Very easy to add and very effective.
Thunder and lightning
This was integrated into the spiders node to save time. That was a mistake due to power draw.
Path
Both the left and right path nodes were fragile and the wireless communications introduced tiny delays that were noticeable when trying to sync their actions. These two nodes will use 6 separate rings of NeoPixels each (1 per skull) rather than one single chain of NeoPixels to control chained to the 6 skulls. The communication between the nodes will be direct (likely over UART cable but possibly Wi-Fi) to remove delay. The nodes will not need to communicate via the coordinator as they will each have an ultrasonic sensor so become largely autonomous.
Witch
This had an atomiser added to the cauldron to give a more realistic effect. It reused 3 of the 2023 boxes for multiple sounds; though the 2023 boxes are much quieter than the 2024 boxes.
We will also added a life-sized witch (actually a mannequin wearing a witches outfit).
Creepy head
This is actually a MakeCode Arcade based board with screens so a completely different kind of node. It does have a second Pico based board that drives the speaker in the head but it just plays a background sound on repeat.
Key planned changes:
- Remove more wi-fi, using hardcoded cables instead
- Better sensor/trigger system. Fwer false positives and quicker to act.
- More waterproofing and bigger boxes to hold electronis
- Smoke machine
- Another projector
- More power Pico 2 microcontrollers and introduction of Rasberry Pi Zero 2/3 computers
- Even better power distribution
- Move to high quality audio using separate controllers or I2S.
- Larger powered speakers
- Coffin that shakes and makes noises
- Boxs that opens with eyes
- Moving spiders
- Multiple separate thunder and lightning boxes to make the effect isntallation wide rather than just in the spider enclosure
TODO: Note that each Pico node needs a settings.toml file that contains:
WIFI_SSID = "<WIFI>"
WIFI_PASSWORD = "Password"
- TODO: Note about RAM limitations in Pico devices, particularly with Network and sound being the main hogs
- TODO: Note had to use two devices anyway
- TODO: Note the bodge about not being able to use directory service due to memory
- TODO: Note about Pico running on Laptop for TV and Projector.
- TODO: Note about experimental support for Raspberry Pi (3A+ and Zero 2W)
- TODO: Note about an required upgrade to the power distribution to use normal 13 Amp cable and local USB connectors rather than just running 5v 2A so more power can be provided
- TODO: Audio quality using PWM and filter is not fantastic, switch to I2S or 3A+
TODO: Note the inconsistency that some properties are in
config.pywhilst others are in the code file.
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