LASER Maze - Halloween Haunted House

The LASER Maze was our Processing and Arduino powered garage haunted house for 2011. A monitor sits outside of the garage, displaying "PRESS START." After the button is pressed, an intro video plays that instructs you to dodge the lasers and get your candy in the back of the garage. Whenever you break a laser beam, an alarm sounds, a police light flashes, and a point is added to your score. When you make it back out, you press the stop button to see your final time and score.

We kept all of the lasers very low to the ground to avoid everyone's eyes. Future versions may turn the lasers off for a short time when they are broken for an added layer of safety.

We also made a couple of flashing signs out of red and white blinking bicycle lights. The house is at the end of a cul-de-sac, so we had to advertise to attract more attention.

Here is Alice in Wonderland with her pirate and gremlin friends navigating the maze.



My friend is offering them chocolate milk in the video so he can show off the pile of severed heads he has stored in the fridge.

Step 1 Parts List

The parts list:
a garage
a laptop
Arduino Duemilanove with USB cord
4 green Lasers ($7.54 each at Amazon)
4 CDS cells ($0.50 each at Electronic Goldmine)
4 1K resistors
3 push buttons (arcade style buttons)
1 breadboard
1 servo
1 surge protector with switch
1 red beacon light
1 1000W fog machine
phone cord long enough to run to your sensors (cheap at the thrift store)

You will also need electrical tape, cardboard TP tubes, soldering iron with soldier, velum paper or some other semi transparent paper, and possibly some other small items.

Comments

[Da Person who plays paintball.]

You could also probably make it so that, the more beams you break, the less candy you get. (like you lose one of those mini chocolate bars).

[tinker234]

wow i like the idea wonder if i could set it up for a prop to pop up

[mathieulj]

Another safety measure would be to make sure you only use class 1 or 2 lasers. These are considered relatively safe. You want to stay away from class 3 and class 4 lasers, the former can cause instant eye damage and the later will also burn the skin.

With a class 1 laser -> no danger unless they bring a telescope or microscope into your maze (unlikely)
With a class 2 laser (1mW max) -> generally safe as the blink reflex will protect they eye from damage but intentionality holding your eye open (fighting the reflex) can lead to damage

Take it from me (I have a laser burn on my retina), higher power lasers should not be taken lightly.