Our newest creation, JARVIS, made the cover of the September issue of Servo Magazine! JARVIS is a steampunk robot that I made to showcase many of the Animatronic systems I use when I build my characters. I designed him so that he could be disassembled and shipped to the various Haunt...

Building on the lessons we learned while constructing Pete the Pirate ( http://www.hauntforum.com/showthread.php?t=34880 ), we've started the build of our newest character. I'm planning on adding a pirate bar scene to my display so the first build will be a bartender. So here's the start of...

My Most Detailed Prop Build for 2013 COMPLETED One of my goals for this year was coming up with a method to make my figures so that I could vary the poses from the standard straight style. Most of my stand up props are made with 2x4 legs and pvc upper bodies which work fine but it didn't...

We were blessed with great weather and a very enthusiastic crowd on Halloween. Between the 2 parties and Halloween night we had over 500 people. A bit down from last year but still a wonderful turnout. <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFzQdf9Ad8I"...

After a long year of prop building, I've finally been able to complete my entire prop to do list for this year's haunt. These videos show short clips of the major new builds I took on this year. Here's the video for the early season builds - Thanks to all those here and those members of...

I've completed the third member of my witches coven. We started with the traditional witch stirring her cauldron, then added a second witch last year reading from her spell book with 2 axis head movement. To get a little more from the scene, I wanted the third witch to have more movement...

Join us this Friday at 6:00 p.m. Pacific time as we continue our holiday display video how to presentations. The first 9 weeks covered lighting primarily used in Christmas displays but this will be the first presentation that focuses on Halloween techniques. I'll be going over the basics of...

In addition to working on the electronics projects, I have spent some time building props this year. Here's a short video showing some of what I've got done for this year so far. There are more detailed videos of each of the builds on my YouTube channel at...

I finally took the plunge and bought a welder and am trying to teach myself how to weld. Here's the results of my first attempts at welding up a pneumatic pop up. These will be combined into my Pirate display with an audio track and run by a Picaxe controller.

This is the newest animated creature addition to my graveyard. I think he'll provide a few TOT's with a scare this year. I used a 3/4 bore, 16 inch throw cylinder and the prop was run with one of my Picaxe controllers.

My biggest goal for this year is to get all of my 3 axis skulls up and running and to put together a controller system that allowed them to be stand alone props. I didn't want to be connected to a computer and didn't want to have to program them in VSA. Since none of my skulls movements...

Our fully animated haunt with over 25 home made animated props and 3 projections. We've chosen to not have actors and instead rely totally on animated props that we build ourselves. Most of the props and scenes are controlled by Picaxe micro controllers I've built which allow us great...

I know people have used the picaxe chipset as a prop controller before, but I wanted to emulate the functionality of the picoboo box controller. So I developed a "learn and play" controller. The picaxe chip will log the state of the input button, and then play it back on the output pin upon...

I built this greeter so that he can be used with either the skull and a pair of skeleton hands or with the skull skin and the regular hands. It also has the joints from Spider Hill Prop Works for the shoulders and elbows so the position can be adjusted. I'll need to adjust the jaw closure...

In an effort to add to the scare in the spider portion of our haunt, I added a triggered leaping spider. He'll be placed near the front door and will be the final scare the TOT's will have to pass before they get their candy. I'm planning on adding a spitter as well that will add a great...

I bought a Picaxe kit for a drink and think in February and don't have the desire to learn how to use it. I'll sell it for what I paid, $70 and I'll ship it for free. The kits includes: PICAXE-18M2 Starter Pack: $23.00 PICAXE USB Programming Cable: $22.00 Breadboard - required - $12.00 Jumper...

As many of you have seen, I've been designing and building, with lots of help from Fritz, quite a few different controllers for various tasks in my haunt using the Picaxe 08 chip. My ultimate goal was to design a single board that would be able to control almost any of my props. I wanted it...