Just in time for Halloween, I posted a video of an Arduino jack-o-lantern project I call "Pimp Your Pumpkin." It's a basic project and makes use of a proximity sensor to make your halloween pumpkin a little more interactive.
Jeremy, that's a good idea, or perhaps carve a dedicated hole for the sensor itself. Some people may want to put the sensor somewhere else entirely.
Thanks, kas and Alligator!
Alligator, the video was shot with a Canon 5D Mark II and edited in Final Cut Express. I licensed the music and PCB background animation from Envato marketplaces. The circuit diagrams were made in Fritzing, exported as SVG into Inkscape for layout. I'm glad you liked it.
I like this. I'd like to see the code posted here.
It would be pretty easy to also run some LEDs to other pumpkins on either side, all controlled by the same arduino.
I thought this was really cool, so I downloaded the latest version of fritzing (fritzing.2010.09.30.linux.i386) to check it out. Alas, it doesn't seem to like your design:
Parse error (1) at line 61, column 9:
tag mismatch
/srv/rwa/ran/downloads/arduino/ideas/Schematic.fz
I resaved (and pushed to github) the file with the latest version of Fritzing, but it looks like the schematic got messed up in the process. I'm new to Fritzing myself and haven't totally figured it all out. Here's a JPG of the breadboard diagram:
Thanks again to everyone for the feedback! I'm working on videos for a few other projects now. If you have any ideas for projects to demo, let me know.
I made a slight variation for mine. The jack-o-lantern stays dark until someone activates the motion sensor, then it lights up. I used the random LED flickering code for the 4 high-brightness LEDs to make it look like a candle. I also used a 70ft motion sensor that is usually used for security lights.