Slashdot Asks: What Are You Doing For Hallowe'en? 273
Hallowe'en is my favorite holiday: I like seeing costumes (and walking around in my own), and seeing what people do to decorate their houses, yards, etc. For the second year in a row though, I've failed to come up with a really good scheme for making my own place appropriately spooky. So, in hopes of loosing some inspiration for myself and others, I ask today what you're doing to spookify your surroundings (or your person) tomorrow, especially if it means using technology in interesting ways. Sensor-activated scary sounds or lights? An Arduino or Raspberry Pi-controlled costume? Elaborate trap-door? Infrasonic hackle-raising subwoofer install? Maybe one year Alek Komarnitsky will switch to Hallowe'en instead of Christmas, and offer a webcam-equipped remote-controllable haunt.
Spellchecker (Score:0, Informative)
Hallowe'en?
Don't bother... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Spellchecker (Score:5, Informative)
The submitter is Timmeh himself. He does this every year trying to act pedantic by spelling it "Hallowe'en". He thinks he's being smart or something.
Re:Ghost Hunts (Score:4, Informative)
There is no actual genuine research anymore becasue it's all been done.
There are no ghosts.
Every aspect has been explained using a process known as science.
Look into it.
Re:Down Under... (Score:3, Informative)
Halloween dates from 1745 and is of Christian origin, it was / it is primarily of Irish, Scottish and English Gaelic or Pagan origin. It is certainly not American in origin. Even trick or treating, traces back to the 15th Century UK and European practice of dressing up (to disguise themselves from souls seeking vengeance prior departing the earth on All Hallows Day) and children sharing and eating soul cakes as an act to pray for the souls in purgatory.
In fact, in the US, Halloween was not brought over by the Puritans, but rather was adopted later when the Scottish and Irish immigrants occurred in the 19th Century.
Re:LED pumpkins (Score:4, Informative)
If you're not familiar with the 555, it's little more than a chip that goes "high, low, high, low, etc." on its output pin. Not as accurate as a crystalline oscillator, but we're not building a stopwatch here. The speed at which this "clock" runs is determined by the capacitors and resistors wired up to it. In this circuit, one of the resistors is variable (a potentiometer), which allows you to adjust the clock speed by turning a knob instead of swapping out components.
Now, this clock signal feeds into a 4017 Johnson counter. This IC has 10 output pins that go high one at a time, in sequence. For every clock cycle, an output pin goes low, and the next one goes high.
Your circuit only has 8 LEDs though. That leaves you with 2 extra output pins. Once the counter gets past the 8th output pin, you want it to reset to the first pin, and then continue operating as before. An easy way of doing that is to wire the 9th output pin directly to the reset input. That way, when the 9th output goes high, the counter automatically resets. I'm guessing that this is where your circuit is failing.
Make sure pins 9 and 15 are shorted on your 4017. Pin 9 is the 9th output, and pin 15 is the master reset input. That's likely to be where this is failing. That, or the clock stops running.