Halloween Haunted House

I'm inspired by the Halloween haunted house to make it more spooky, so I enhance the build to include moving door and flashing lights.

Materials:

• Cereal box
• Popsicle stick
• Elmers glue
• Twigs
• Paperclip
• Clear plastic (I recycle this from snack box that have plastic window)
• kumquat - for mini pumpkin
• Cardboard as the base

Electronics:

• Arduino nano or Uno
• Servo motor
• LED x2

Create the papercraft haunted house as per the Instructions. For more fun you can print out the one that is black and white so that your kids can colour them.

Plan which window you would like to replace, I am replacing most of the window with clear plastic. Break the popsickle stick as per the outline of the broken window in the papercraft.

Colour the popsickle accordingly.

Test fit the popsicle stick

Cut out the window that you want to replace with clear plastic.

Start by gluing the clear window from the inside using elmers glue or other multi purpose glue. Then glue your broken window with popsickle stick. Take your time to get this right, it is quite rewarding to see comes into life.

Cut out the door but leave one side as hinges. Don't forget to make the ghost.

Paint the internal black to get the more dramatic effect after installation.

Then you can test fit everything to make sure the house is as expected.

Find the twigs that looks reasonably similar. I know you will never find one that looks exactly the same. So I modified the twigs by cutting and pasting them to make it short and looks like miniature tree.

You can sliced off half of the branch that you want to shorten, then sliced off the other side, make sure the two can be joined. Then carefully slide the shrink wrap and then join the two using heat gun. And voila you get the shape that you want.

Repeat the same process above until you are satisfied with the tree.

Find the spot on the diorama base where you want the tree to sit. Ideally it will sit just next to where the tree was drawn. Poke a hole on the base. Then use another piece of cardboard to act as the holder, slide the twigs through and break it apart by slicing it in multiple places, then apply the glue generously and press it down on the base.

This should flatten the base of the tree and you will need to hold it or use other object to hold until the glue dried. You should have a nice looking tree.

Now to make it more realistic you can attached the servo to the door. First attached paper clip through the door. The loop the paper clip onto the servo attachment.

Then next you can attached LED to the front porch light. I also installed one inside the house.

Now that everything had been attached, it is time to attached the servo and the LED lights to the Arduino Uno.

You can use the diagram as a guide.

The code can be downloaded in the following link.

To make it more dramatic you can add more decorations. I carved out a mini pumpkin from the Kum-quat fruit, it is like a mini orange, which is the right size for the diorama. Then you can also add more lights into the mini pumpkin.

Add the fence from pop-sickle sticks.

As you can see lighting also plays an important effect. This diorama goes very well with the previous build of the mummy.