The Spooky Machine

Halloween display

Berlin, 2020

How do you celebrate Halloween during a global pandemic, when everyone is into social distancing? My 14 year old neighbor Paul and I decided to build a little Covid safe Halloween display for the front door of my workshop, as we wanted to entertain and to spook our neighborhood during those dark times.

The back side of the machine before it was installed in the shop door

“The Spooky Machine” became something like a little puppet theater, which could be operated from its back. Paul and I built a big black cardboard box with a wooden frame, that would fit exactly behind the glass front door of my workshop, facing the sidewalk.

View on the spooky machine from the sidewalk

Paul had a budget of 10€ to buy scary decorations from the one Euro shop, but unfortunately, he had to drop out of the project shortly after shopping and I had to finish the machine by myself. I dug in my cellar and found several interesting light effects and some more decoration materials, which all went into the box. At the end, the machine featured a little laser projector, a plasma globe, all kinds of LEDs and two flicker flame neon lamps besides all kinds of spooky and not so spooky things.

The street facing side of the machine, filled with random “spooky” decoration materials

The effects could be turned on and off individually via a control desk, built out of switchable multiplugs. With a few strings and wires connected to some of the decorations, they could be spun and shook for a cheap, yet thrilling, haunted effect. Outside, I mounted the speaker of a toy megaphone above the door. This helped to send evil laughters to the sidewalk. In order to be able to see what's going on in front of the door, I hung an IP camera with a power bank in the tree across the sidewalk. Allthough the construction was super simple, it turned out to be quite effective.

We could view what happens on the sidewalk through the lens of an IP camera

It was big fun to operate the machine and everyone seemed to enjoy the show! There were a few kids in costumes walking around with their parents and with a glass door in between us, this was a safe and delightful way to scare and to entertain them.
There's just one sad thing: there weren't any sweets. Sorry.
This year, I ate them all by myself :)

Thanks

Big thanks to Paul for starting this nice project together with me! And also big thanks to Darsha for coming over and helping me operate the machine!

Additional resources

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