Charity Prison Garage

For many years my family and I have made haunted houses in our garage for guests to walk through. This year I decided to challenge myself and make it interactive. Guests would now be able to physically activate the targets in the display. We used this display to raise money for St. Jude Cancer Research.

• Arduino Uno's
• Relay Modules
• Relay Delays
• Relay Timers
• Tons Of Wire
• LEDs
• High Voltage Generators
• MP3 Player Modules
• Arduino Power Supply

Here is a video that shows what was made and how it all worked. I had to learn all sorts of new things for this build like how to power 11 different targets and even make a disco party. The whole goal for this was to allow people to interact with what I have created. I hope you will enjoy the experience from this video.

Every different target of the display would have a 3d printed target base that a photoresistor would be glued into. Each target also had a green LED to tell guests if the target was ready to be activated. All of the scenes that would play out were either controlled by relay delay modules or Arduino microcontrollers.

Target number 1 is one of the more simple targets that was setup and is only controlled by 1 relay delay module.

Target number 2 involved 3d printed lights and an old school ahooga horn. This target was controlled by a relay delay module and some relay timers. The lights were 3d printed in clear filament and the bases were printed in black filament.

The 3rd target was activated when aiming the laser at a target surrounded by filled bottles. This target had a 5v water pump that pumped water through a Gatorade bottle and out a small tube with holes in it. This target was controlled by one relay delay module.

Target number 4 was controlled by 1 relay delay module and activated a hotwired smoke machine. To make the smoke machine relay controlled, we unscrewed the button box and attached our own wires to either prong of the button. We used an old computer fan was added to pump the smoke through the PVC faster but, you probably could get away without one.

The 5th target allowed for guests to get extra candy when activating the target. A servo controlled dropping mechanism that was zip-tied onto the end of a 4 inch PVC tube for this to work. The servo and sensor would be controlled by an Arduino and only allowed the sensor to be activated every 10 seconds.

Target number 6 utilized a 12v solenoid and one relay delay module. A metal tray was positioned right above the solenoid so when activated, the tray would rattle.

This target involved a relay delay module, sound player, and 12v lights. A custom audio track was made for this target which involved yelling, door banging, and other angry prisoner noises.

Target number 8 was controlled by an Arduino, a relay module, and a drill battery powered train horn. After some angry car revving, car tires were heard screeching and then some very VERY loud horn honking. This is probably my favorite target due to the reactions we got.

This super simple target was controlled by a single relay delay module and some super bright lights.

This target involves more than 800,000 volts and was controlled by an Arduino, 3 relay modules, and a bunch of 400v generators. I came across these generators online so I decided to figure out a cool use for them in the display. This target freaked a lot of people out due to the loud and unexpectedness of the target. The high voltage generators were encased in a section of PVC and higher above the guests for safety and loudness reasons.

The final target involved lots of research on pneumatics. Our basic air circuit involved an air dump solenoid that would be filled to about 15 psi at max. Other people fill their tanks up to 40 psi but for what we were doing, about 10-15 psi was perfect. Although we had to fill the compressor a lot, this scare was fun to learn about and see functioning.

The whole goal of these decorations was to collect money for Cancer research. When a donation was made, our disco skeleton would turn of the main controller board of the haunt, and start a disco party. The disco party had strobes, laser projectors, disco lights, and fog machines. The disco skeleton was definitely a hit and was also pretty fun to make. It was controlled by an Arduino, relay modules, and a big button to activate it.

The whole goal of the Prison Experience was for people to interact with something super unique and hopefully brighten their day. I also hope that my small donation can help ease the stress of some families in tough situations. I hope you enjoyed looking through my messy wiring and coding, and I hope this inspires someone else.