DIY Halloween Haunted House (Arduino Project)

Halloween day is coming soon, we decide to DIY a "Haunted House" to scare somebody. As we all like to watch horror movies, and I want to design a story plot like movies show.

Here is my Haunted idea: In a small and quiet dark room, there is a lonely lamp still glowing, at the same time our workmate opens the door and walk into the room, and he or she tries to do some reading, but something strange happenes, the lamp suddenly turns off. After a few seconds later, a woman‘s face will appear on a white wall with a terrifying laughter.

We decide to design two parts. A receiving stimulation part and reaction part. we need to control the lamp to turn on/off. and the reaction part will make the scared woman's face appear on the wall. and i decide to use a projector to help us. Cover the projector with a bezel when no stimulus is received, and stimulate to open the bezel.

So, now let's think about how to achieve this.

Step 1: Preparation

Before making project, we need to prepare these modules:

Crowduino with ATMega 328 V1.1 x 2

Crowtail base shield x 2

RFM69 shield x 2

Crowtail- PIR motion sensor x 1

Crowtail- Solid-State Relay x 1

Crowtail- MP3 Player x 1

Crowtail- 9G servo x 1

TDA7297 Audio Amplifier Module x 1

40mm Mini Speaker 2w 8ohm x 1

3.5mm Audio Cable x 1

PCB board x 1

Crowtail cable x 3

Jumper wire x 4

Step 2: Lamp

At first, we need to reform the lamp, add a relay module to control its on/off.

If I want to control my lamp, so my lamp cable needs some reformations now. You need to peel the power cable as picture shows, and cut off one of the two cables, then we need to make the metallic line exposed so that we can connect it with relay module. A lighter can help us easily.

Next, we need to connect the wire with the relay module, it has two terminals so that we just attach the wires into them by using a screwdriver, at last we need do some safeguard for our safety- tie the Insulating tape with our relay module to prevent electric shock.

So far, the transformation of lamp has been completed.

Step 3: Speaker With Amplifier

Next we should to prepare the speaker part, it's to make up with speaker, amplifier(TDA7297 Audio Amplifier Module), Crowtail- MP3 player.

First of all, we need to connect the speaker with amplifier, this amplifier called TDA7297 is a dual-15w amplifier module, it can make your speaker more louder! Notice that the red line connects the anode of speaker with the “+“ pin of output1 terminal. The grown line is for cathode and “-” pin. This ampifier has two output port, we could choose any one as we like.

Step 4: MP3 Player With Amplifier

This Crowtail- MP3 player is a tiny-size and compact audio module. It supports operations including shuffle and plays in an order of various audio files such as WAV and WMV ones. It gets a Crowtail UART interface, a 3.5mm audio jack and a micro-SD slot. We need to download a horror music into the TF card for background mucic and then insert the TF- card into the slot.

If we want this player to work with an amplifier, we need a 3.5mm audio cable and two jumwires, weld them as picture shows, red wire of audio cable weld with purple jumper wire, and green one for gray jumper wire.

Next we should to connect the mp3 player with amplifier module, it has three pins-GND/IN1/IN2, the gray jumper wire plug into the GND pin and purple one plug into IN1 pin.

OK, the speaker part is finished.

Step 5: PIR Motion Sensor

This is a PIR motion sensor. it can detect the moving of somebody in rated range. when anyone moves in its detecting range, the sensor will output HIGH on its SIG pin. The detecting range can be adjusted by a potentiometer soldered on its circuit board. The max detecting range of it up to 6 meters.

Its functions in this application is to decect that whether there has someone approaching to the lamp.

Step 6: Main Chontroller Board

What you see at the first picture are three modules, they are Crowduino with ATMega 328, Crowtail base shield

and RFM69 shield.

The Crowduino will carry program as it is the “core” of this system. And the blue board is RFM69 shield, The RFM69 shield is compatible with arduino and can get messages from one side of a large office building to the other through numerous internal walls. In open air you can reach 500 meters or more. With more complex antennas and modulation schemes, similar parts have successfully transmitted from space to the ground! If we want to bulid a Haunted House, it's a great choice. and in this application, more RFM69 shield can control more device, and I just control one device- projector for a simple haunted house show.

And the last board is a crowtail- base shield, it will provide convenience for you to connect sensors and other modules with arduino. at last you need to stack them together as pictures show. I call it “station”.

Step 7: Upload the Program

We need two “stations“, one for send command and other one for receiving. and we need to program them. Here are code.

Upload the code into this two crowduino with a micro usb cable.

Step 8: Formation

Okay, now we need to combine these parts, "speaker" part, "reformed lamp" part and "moving detection" part. In the base shield, there are two digital port (D5 and D12) and a softwareserial port (D2/D3).

We need three crowtail cables now, and then connect the "reformed lamp" part with D5, "moving detection" part with D12. also the "speaker" part with the software serial D2/D3 port.

Step 9: Remote Shielding Plate

As we want to control the display of projector, we just need to control a shielding plate and it will block the

Projection hole when the lamp is lighted. and when someone moving, the lamp will suddenly turn off, and then the servo will rotate to control the PCB board for shelter of the hole.

Look at the picture, use the glue gun to fix the blade with the PCB board, then plug the servo onto it, also connect the servo with a "station" by the "D9" port of shield.

Step 10: Have a Test

OK, fix the servo with projector and have a test to confirm that can work normally. and we need a computer and some scared dynamic picture. and put the computer and projector at a concealed place which will be better.

At last, we choose a small room as our test site and it seems very successful. you need supply power for amplifier and two "station", also the lamp plug should plug into socket.

Next you can see the short movie for live demo.

Step 11: We Can Do More

Actually, we can add more horror props into halloween haunted house, just use more servo or motor to control others, so I choose a RFM69 shield due to that I really want to bulid a real big haunted house, then I could invite my friend to my house have a grand halloween party.

And I hope you can bulid your haunted house too. please move up and do it better！