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Building a Halloween 2023 Project

Oct. 31, 2023

I set out to build a Halloween project by improving the classic yard ghost.

What you’ll learn:

What is The Scary Yard Ghost?
Other Halloween projects I’ve built.

Halloween is every engineer’s dream holiday. It’s no-holds-barred with motif, technique, and composition. Light, dark, mystery, flashy—everything is a possibility.

The classic phantom, a ghost, has been around since the first century AD. Pliny the Younger once saw a specter of sorts around his house, rattling chains no less.

Is it steeped in childhood memories of candy overloads, fun with friends, costumes, and haunted houses? Do we love it to relive those times when we were young? Is it simply due to the rush of being scared? Whatever the case may be, it’s the most DIY/hacked/modded holiday we have.

I fall in with the Halloween-loving crowd for sure. Here are some of my past Halloween projects:

My scary monster movie “Longarm” was created to demonstrate wireless motion sensors I made.

I had to stop making projects. I simply don’t have the budget. If you’re curious, the more elaborate builds were well over $1,000 in parts and materials. If you add in time, every build is a fortune.

But this year, 2023, I decided to sacrifice for a new idea: “The Scary Yard Ghost.”

Here’s an example of a yard ghost. It's just a little ghost attached to a tree in some random suburb I happened to be riding my bike through.

I see yard ghosts every year. You know, those ghosts and spirits hanging in front yard trees. What I always wanted to see were the ghosts moving around side-to-side (one dimension), or moving around a yard, turning corners (two dimensions).

I did just that! Take a look at the preview of The Scary Yard Ghost coming up next:

How did I do this, you’re wondering? All that will be explained in an upcoming post. But here’s a little rundown: I used a servo motor controlled by an MCU, powered by an external battery, and controlled with either onboard software or wirelessly. I got a few dollars of the scariest material I could find at Jo-Ann Fabrics. The most important piece of the system… a twist tie from a loaf of bread. I needed a way to attach the ghost to the little servo-tram I made.

Sound off in the comments if you’ve built some cool Halloween projects in the past. Also, do you think the Halloween hijinks should extend until Thanksgiving?

About the Author

Cabe Atwell | Technology Editor, Electronic Design

Cabe is a Technology Editor for Electronic Design.

Engineer, Machinist, Maker, Writer. A graduate Electrical Engineer actively plying his expertise in the industry and at his company, Gunhead. When not designing/building, he creates a steady torrent of projects and content in the media world. Many of his projects and articles are online at element14 & SolidSmack, industry-focused work at EETimes & EDN, and offbeat articles at Make Magazine. Currently, you can find him hosting webinars and contributing to Electronic Design and Machine Design.

Cabe is an electrical engineer, design consultant and author with 25 years’ experience. His most recent book is “Essential 555 IC: Design, Configure, and Create Clever Circuits”

Cabe writes the Engineering on Friday blog on Electronic Design.