Looking for a geeky twist for your Halloween decorations? Michal Janyst is onto something. He used two 8×8 LED modules and an Arduino Nano to give his jack-o’-lantern a pair of animated eyes.
Here’s Michal’s crazy-eyed pumpkin:
Ride a broom to Michal’s blog for the parts list, schematics and links to the software and code you need to emulate his hack. You might want to combine it with this wide-mouthed pumpkin hack to make it more unique.
[via Prosthetic Knowledge]
Normally when you carve a pumpkin you put the design on the outside, but when making a pumpkin TARDIS all rules fly out the front doors. Naturally a TARDIS, being bigger on the inside, should be carved on the inside. DeviantArt user EmpressofSquee created this masterpiece showing off the TARDIS interior complete with its time- and space- controlling console.
Sadly, time is the enemy of this TARDIS. It won’t take long before it starts to decay. But maybe the Doctor has a plan!
[via Cheezburger via That's Nerdalicious]
Tony Dighera of Cinagro Farms is a mad scientist kind of organic farmer. He has spent the last four years on his 40-acre farm in Ventura County, CA perfecting his process to create pumpkin versions of Frankenstein’s monster.
It took a while because the plastic molds for the pumpkins were tricky and it took some time to figure out how to use them and what material to use.
If it’s not right, it can accelerate the rotting of the fruit. There’s also the timing of mold placement. It has to be done with the fruit’s small enough to fit inside, but there’s a risk the fruit will turn during it’s growing process and snap away from its stem.
See? It ain’t easy creating mutant gourds shaped like horror legend heads. Ultimately, his efforts paid off, and the end result is awesome.
Dighera harvested about 5,500 Pumpkinsteins this first year. The crop even sold out to suppliers months back at $75(USD) per head. I can’t wait to see what he does next. He has plans to devote more land to projects like this.
[via New York Times via Geyser of Awesome]
Each year around Halloween, we see some really cool and geeky pumpkins that people are carving. Today I found a few carved pumpkins that will make the geek in you smile. My favorite is the first photo you see here, the Cylon.
This bad boy is from the original ’80s Battlestar Galactica series, not the remake from a few years back. What makes it great is the red eyeball that moves back and forth. The next pumpkin sounds too complicated for a lazy decorator like myself.
It’s the gamer pumpkin and the stem is a controller that lets you play Tetris on your Jack-o-Lantern. The final pumpkin isn’t so much a pumpkin as it is a collection of them. Check out the dinosaurs made from a hoard of pumpkins, they are awesome.
[via Littlebits]
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Most Halloween pumpkin carvings nowadays don’t even try to spook people anymore, instead presenting geeky or pop culture references. Then again, it’s not like the default jack-o’-lantern’s face is scary anyway.
Comedienne Megan MacKay knows how to spook today’s trick or treaters:
Nooooooooooooo
[via Megan MacKay via Foodbeast via Incredible Things]
These life-sized dinosaurs are made from many carved pumpkins. They look like they are a special breed of mutant, irradiated giants. Man, I wish these bright beasts came out every year, only on Halloween night, only to disappear in the mists come morning. I would be an awesome mutant dino hunter. I would make glowing pumpkin pies from their carcasses and every Halloween, the hunt would begin again.
Well, I’m just going to have to settle for these awesome pics. These giant dinosaur skeletons were on display at The Great Jack O’Lantern Blaze in New York for the last few years. They do a dinosaur category every year and the creations are amazing.
The detail is impressive to say the least. And you were so proud of your little scary pumpkin! Hit the link for more images.
[via Geekologie]
Worf: Captain. There is an anomaly dead ahead. Too late! We have entered a galaxy far, far away. So far away I’m not getting any accurate readings. Oh, and we are also now in a time period that the computer will only say is a “long time ago”.
Picard: What is that Worf? Is that a ship? It looks a bit like that hamburger the replicator served me for lunch not one hour ago. With a satellite dish on top. Red alert! Raise shields!
This awesome pumpkin is the only crossover between Star Wars and Star Trek that I want to see. Who would win? Picard and Kirk are a seasoned starship Captains with years on their side, but Han Solo is rough and tumble and has the reckless asset of youth. He also has a Wookiee co-pilot by his side, who could probably rip the arms off of pretty much any member of the Enterprise’s crew.
This pumpkin is from master pumpkin carver Alex Wer. Check out his entire gallery here.
[via Between The Pages via Neatorama]
I love it when people attach things like smartphones and cameras to the bottom of helium balloons and launch them into the atmosphere. A man and his grandson have carved a Halloween pumpkin named Patches and attached the pumpkin to the bottom of a giant helium balloon.
Along with the pumpkin, grandpa also attached a camera to record the pumpkin’s journey through the stratosphere. The man used a 1600 g balloon that was filled with 3.5 m³ of helium. That giant helium balloon was attached to a platform that held the pumpkin and a camera to record the trip. Jump to about one minute into the video to see the pumpkin head to the heavens.
On the coolest things about this video is that you can see ice form on Patches the pumpkin as it travels through the ice cold atmosphere. The pumpkin reportedly encountered temperatures as low as -20°C and accelerated at a rate of 5 m/s when let go. The pumpkin reached an altitude of 30 km before the balloon burst with Patches and the camera returning to Earth using a five-foot diameter parachute. You have to check out the video for yourself and be warned the video is a bit of a commercial for the TOP Fruit Hub app, but my eight-year-old daughter assures me the video is awesome.
Fog is a big part of any good Halloween festivities. You have to have fog. It’s the stuff ghouls and ghosts rise out of. Well if you want to have a cool fog effect for your next halloween party and don’t want to pay a lot of money, you can make a fog machine out of a pumpkin.
