Why carve a pumpkin when you can print one (or several)!
Last year when I built my 3d printer, this creepy skull faced pumpkin was the first big thing I printed (because it was getting close to Halloween and all). I threw an arduino and some LEDs inside and voila- instant awesomeness! I thought it was neat, the neighborhood kids thought it was neat, and not having a bunch of pumpkin goop stuck in my arm hair was neat :). Fast forward to this year- More printers, more awesome, more time, so logically… more pumpkins! Well, yeah, and skulls too, but they’re kinda similar when they’re piled on the porch together and all lit up.
These were all modeled by more creative people than me (I’m pretty good with mechanical design, not so much with the artistic modeling stuff). This year I’ll probably keep the flickery-Arduino-LED setup for last years skull pumpkin (might need to go brighter though), but the others are getting these super bright, super easy, battery powered tap lights (like they advertise for putting under cabinets and inside spider infested garage cupboards). $2 each and they wont catch my house on fire- that’s a double win in my book 🙂
I might need to add in some motion sensors and some kind of loud scary cackling noise maker, but these are pretty great already!