lazz
11-04-2007, 10:14 PM
it is over for a year and I got some sleep.... some not much just a little....it was a light halloween year for me.... only about 400 kids... down from over 500 years past...
this year was a challenge for us here... work is more demanding than ever... and more fun too.... I didnt get the week off I usually take... I only got off a couple afternoons....
this year was the year I spent way too much time on pumpkins.... 2 of them.... I needed something near the street to make the wait in line better... kids can spend up to 20 minutes in line waiting to get to the mirror.... so I wanted to entertain them.... and it didnt work the way I wanted....
I made 2 columns to hold all the goodies and support the pumpkins I went with 18 X 18 X 42 inches the 18 will fit between stuff for storage and the 42 keeps the pumpkins low for the little guys.... and I pretty much filled the columns completely... the 2 pumpkins were a big and a little one....the small pumpkin is sorta weird shaped....sorta like a really large flat basketball.... and all the neighbors thought the big one was a 2 foot tall peanut until I painted him....
I used 2 ssr's per column for a total of 8 circuits each pumpkin and an olsen 595 to bind it all together.... I used a rotary actuator to rotate the heads 180 degrees ... also there were 2 small cylinders used to position the heads... I could center the heads facing the street or 4 other known positions.... I can do a short burst of air for a sorta random position also....
then comes the mouths using another cylinder I can open the mouth and via the cylinder spring it closes automatically .....
so 5 channels for position and one more for speakers....
the way I did it was I open and close the mouth and turn on and off the speaker while a wav plays....
so until I decide to upload pics this is my story and Im sticking to it :)....
what went wrong was.....
1) I tried to do too complex skits.... I even thought about doing a "who is on first" thing until I finished the first 30 second skit....
2) air is hard to keep quiet...
3)the solenoids buzz and make lots of noise....
4) the kids were not too entertained...
what went right ....
1) everyone noticed the talking pumpkins
2) I did a seemingly random 6 minute series of boos... with all the noise folks looked at them as they moved and when they said boo it scared a couple folks....
3) the short skits tied the whole thing together.... one sequence has the pumpkins complaining the ghosts are making them dizzy ( I have several axworthy ghosts flying)
4)folks looked at other stuff closer after seeing the pumpkins....
usually I scare some folks... and often I amaze the kids with the mirror.... but these pumpkins did something new for me.... they fooled folks.... I had maybe 30 folks ask how did I do it.... this is a new area for me....
this year was a challenge for us here... work is more demanding than ever... and more fun too.... I didnt get the week off I usually take... I only got off a couple afternoons....
this year was the year I spent way too much time on pumpkins.... 2 of them.... I needed something near the street to make the wait in line better... kids can spend up to 20 minutes in line waiting to get to the mirror.... so I wanted to entertain them.... and it didnt work the way I wanted....
I made 2 columns to hold all the goodies and support the pumpkins I went with 18 X 18 X 42 inches the 18 will fit between stuff for storage and the 42 keeps the pumpkins low for the little guys.... and I pretty much filled the columns completely... the 2 pumpkins were a big and a little one....the small pumpkin is sorta weird shaped....sorta like a really large flat basketball.... and all the neighbors thought the big one was a 2 foot tall peanut until I painted him....
I used 2 ssr's per column for a total of 8 circuits each pumpkin and an olsen 595 to bind it all together.... I used a rotary actuator to rotate the heads 180 degrees ... also there were 2 small cylinders used to position the heads... I could center the heads facing the street or 4 other known positions.... I can do a short burst of air for a sorta random position also....
then comes the mouths using another cylinder I can open the mouth and via the cylinder spring it closes automatically .....
so 5 channels for position and one more for speakers....
the way I did it was I open and close the mouth and turn on and off the speaker while a wav plays....
so until I decide to upload pics this is my story and Im sticking to it :)....
what went wrong was.....
1) I tried to do too complex skits.... I even thought about doing a "who is on first" thing until I finished the first 30 second skit....
2) air is hard to keep quiet...
3)the solenoids buzz and make lots of noise....
4) the kids were not too entertained...
what went right ....
1) everyone noticed the talking pumpkins
2) I did a seemingly random 6 minute series of boos... with all the noise folks looked at them as they moved and when they said boo it scared a couple folks....
3) the short skits tied the whole thing together.... one sequence has the pumpkins complaining the ghosts are making them dizzy ( I have several axworthy ghosts flying)
4)folks looked at other stuff closer after seeing the pumpkins....
usually I scare some folks... and often I amaze the kids with the mirror.... but these pumpkins did something new for me.... they fooled folks.... I had maybe 30 folks ask how did I do it.... this is a new area for me....