Talking Arduino Halloween Skeleton

Welcome to another of my instructables!

So Halloween is upon us again and I really wanted to use the Arduino I had.  I went to the halloween store and found a skull with a hinged skull and that was the spark that began this project.  I knew that it would probably be easy to have a servo move using the arduino and have it move the skull jaw up and down.

Step 1: Gather your materials

you'll need stuff.  Lots of stuff.  Well...not lots of stuff, but stuff from different places.  Here's a sort of breakdown of all the stuff I used and where I got it.

Arduino Duemilanove - $34.99
http://www.makershed.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=MKSP4

Ladyada Waveshield Kit - $21.95
http://www.makershed.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=MKAD11

2 Super Bright Red LED's - $1.79 for a 2 pack
http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=3096133

PIR Sensor Module - $9.99
http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2906724

A small servo - around $13.00
Bought it at a RC hobby shop here in town

A skull - around $9

A black cloak halloween costume - around $10

various bones

Speakers

Wire

PVC and fittings - from lowes or home depot

hmmm.....seeing it all written out it seems like more money that I remember spending...haha.  Still though, to get animatronic halloween things premade you'd spend a bunch more that that.  That's what I'll keep telling myself to justify this.

Comments

[evil_ol_man]

Nice Instructable, and the project looks good. But....For less money than what you spent for the 2 Arduno boards and the aggrivation of putting them together you could have bought a Scary Terry Audio servo driver board From Cowalicious for $42.95 which is pretty much plug and play....Your Arduino kit comes to about $56.94. Just Curious as to why you did it that way.

[gegy1]

Hey!
Very nice instructable! I am searching a while, could please tell me somebody where to buy a skull like the one in the instructable. Best will be when i can buy it in germany or austria.
Thanks!

[Raythe54]

Have you tried: http://www.skeleton-factory.com/ ?

[Raythe54]

Has anyone converted this for use with the WaveHC library, by any chance? I'm a total newbie to Arduino and stumbling through it at the moment.

[tinker234]

is there a way to make the servo quiet it seems a litlle loud

[balak95]

i get 9 error #include expects filename

sorry my key boards broke so some keys dont work, but yeah i compile this and get that error message is there anything i have to add, i need this by halloween.

[Archos_User]

Make sure you include Ladyada's AF_Wave library from her site for the Wave Shield
Also missing in the code here, there are 2 Include statements that are blank right at the top of the code. "Instructables doesnt like the "<>" symbols posted in the code and it dropped the information after the #include statement. I typed out the names of the symbols here before and after the information that is required.

The first one should be #include (less than symbol) AF_Wave.h (greater than symbol)
The second one should be "#include (less than symbol)avr/pgmspace.h
(greater than symbol)
It took me a bit to figure out (i'm new to arduino and not a programmer) looking at other examples of code lead me to change those two include statements
I loaded the code last night (without a servo hooked up yet) and the wav portion works no problem.

Cheers

[larsen e whipsnade]

Great Instructable. Anxious to re-task Mr. Skull!  When I try to verify the code on my Arduino, I get an error (looking for a particular filename). Any Ideas?

[samseide]

could be a library you are missing.  Take that error that you are getting and type it into google.  Whenever I had an error happen like that I was missing an arduino library I just had to download and throw into a folder.  Good luck!  Hope this helps!

[depotdevoid]

I love it, this is totally awesome!  Someone else mentioned the waveshield recently, and after seeing what you've done with it, I'm totally considering buying one. 

I'm pretty new at all this arduino stuff, and I'd like to see the code you used.  Can you post it?

Thanks!

[samseide]

see my reply to bill2009.  I don't know why it isn't showing up for some people, but it's there in step 8!  I'll attach it as a text file in that step too I guess!  I'll also message you a copy of it.

[bill2009]

for some rason I can't see the code.  Is it posted directly somewhere?

[samseide]

it's posted in step 8 and is visible on my laptop here in firefox.  I had the same problem you were having when I tried to pull it up at my work.   I don't know why that is.  I'll send you a message with the code in it.

[mbrameld]

Might also be cool to use the voltage from the wav shield to set how wide the mouth opens. Open the mouth wider as the sound gets louder. I'd have to try it out, but in my head at least it seems like this would make the mouth movement a little more natural.

[samseide]

I totally get what you're saying.  It may look better.  Try it and let me know!  haha.

[Lasrin]

A trim pot might have been better, taken off the other lead of the resistor.  This way you could adjust the sensitivity to the audio.

[samseide]

you can still adjust the sensitivity using the code by just telling it at what audio level the mouth should open.  So you could do it as a hardware or a software solution.

[cool]

HAHA:  "Hey kids, come here, let me tickle your funny bone."

[Tomboys]

This is really cool.  Wish I saw it sooner.

[samseide]

get an early jump on next year!  haha

[samseide]

video has now been embedded!  Take a look!

[fungus amungus]

Awesome, but needs video!

[samseide]

a great friend of mine, and a great youtuber, is putting up a video documenting the build as well as showing it running.  Should be done sometime after 8pm CST 10-29-09.  Check back then as I'll put a link to it in the first step!

[fungus amungus]

You can even embed the video. Just click the "Video" button in the editor.