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Neat Homebrew Halloween Tech?

Posted by Cliff on from the costumes-comprised-of-just-cloth-are-boring dept.

aibrahim asks: "I just saw a proton pack (alternate site) a friend has built. It made me wonder what other neat high tech things the Slashdot crowd might be brewing up for the coming holidays. What I am really after is stuff that one of you made, better yet would be diagrams or explanations of how you made it. Doesn't have to be a costume item, anything interesting that fits the season would do." This is a follow-up to the earlier article. So what are you dressing up as for Halloween, and how do you plan on making your costume interesting?

10 of 50 comments (clear)

  1. We are borg. You will be assimilated by stuuf · · Score: 4, Interesting

    About 4 years ago (I was in 7th grade), I made a Borg costume. I went to Radio Shack and got a bunch of LED's, wired them to a switch and a some C batteries, and a switch, taped the to a black turtle neck and sweat pants. I took one of those black face masks (for skiing I think) and added a Borg eye attachment, consisting of a jumbo LED, wine cork, and drinking straw.

    --

    Everyone is born right-handed; only the greatest overcome it

  2. Forget the costume by littlerubberfeet · · Score: 3, Interesting

    There are these two NASA engineers that live near me. They take their two adjacent houses and make one huge halloween scene outside. It was the first time in my <sniff> 17 years that I have ever seen VAX at work. THey had computer screens set up with wierd fonts, dry ice, cool lighting, and a hell of a lot of various 'shock' items. Occasionally, spaghetti would come shooting out over the roof, it was awsome.

    In the 'off' season, they have an A scale train that spans their two houses.

    Use this, make a haunted house if you have time, and dress up too.

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    1. Re:Forget the costume by Bryan+Andersen · · Score: 2, Interesting

      The most tech I've done in years is to run worms on old green and amber screen terminals and set them in the windows next to the door. Looks much better if you have one with a detachable keyboard. They usually are partially hidden by a netting with leaves and other forest floor debris in it. It makes an interesting effect to have the worms crawling about under the debris. I use black construction paper to hide the bezels of the terminals.

  3. not an item... a sound by agnosonga · · Score: 4, Interesting
    My dad has a recording of me crying (when I was 2 y.o.) which he slowed down so that it sounded like a wailing monster. Then he dubbed some glass harp music and other weird scary sounds over that.
    It ended up being very interesting holloween music, it still makes me shiver.

    some other musical glasses links: 1 2 3

    1. Re:not an item... a sound by maeka · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I usually am the one to stay home and hand out the candy.
      I like to play Coil's unused Hellraiser theme (Clive Barker found the music scarier than the movie), put trashbag black-outs over the street lights, blooddied mannequin parts in the yard, and the best is a candy baited - gelatin filled - tiger trap.

  4. We-ell... Not really high-tech... by Telent · · Score: 3, Interesting
    ...but maybe you'll find it interesting anyway.

    I'm going as a blowfish. For the spikes, I hacked up some large foam cones from a craft store, carved the pieces into spike-shapes, and used a file on them to get them smooth. I'll spray-paint them yellow, then use skin glue from a costume store to affix them to my yellow-painted face and the yellow bathing cap I'll have over my long hair (yes, I am female).

    Proper dress? Oh, probably bluejeans and a blue turtleneck (simulated water)... or maybe this. Cripes, I love Halloween... what other day of the year do you have a chance to dress up as Puffy without a free trip to the mental asylum?

    1. Re:We-ell... Not really high-tech... by zulux · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I'm going as a blowfish [....] (yes, I am female)

      Ahem...

      Anyways.. I found this hidious blue poyester suit at the thrift, and found a .JPG of the BSOD. I color corrected the blue to match the suit and glued it to the back. I wore it last night to two parties, one with normal people and the other with geeks, and at both it was rather popular.

      --

      Moneyed corporations, non-working 'poor' and criminal prisoners are turning productive citizens into tax-slaves.

  5. Interesting thoughts for cool enhanced blowfish by SuperKendall · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Your costume idea sounded pretty cool, and got me thinking about a more advanced version - you could have a loose bag wrapped around your whole body with lightweight spikes all over it, that would dangle along the costume.

    Inside the bag, you would be wearing a backpack with a powerful vaccuum that could instantly inflate the bag, also make the spikes go straight out at the same time! What a great load of fun THAT costume would be, though I'll bet at a party you'd end up breaking something around you eventually, or at least spill a few people's drinks.

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
  6. Robot Frank by floydigus · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Be Robot Frank

    --

    All things in moderation; including moderation

  7. BFG8500 by pjwhite · · Score: 2, Interesting

    About three years ago I built a BFG8500 (smaller cousin to the BFG9000) as part of my halloween costume. I sold it on eBay a couple of years ago, but I still have some pictures of it. Here, here, here, here and here. It was pretty cool. It had a digital sound generator to recreate the whooshing sound of the BFG9000 and a photoflash with a green filter, rigged to a trigger button. And some blinky LEDs, too.