Last Halloween, we finally had a new decoration finished!
We made our version of a pumpkin sentinel, following the guidance at halloweenforum.com.
Here’s how ours turned out:
While I was involved in most of the build, my special little project was creating the LED solution that would make it glow! You can peruse Halloween Forum if you’d like to learn about the primary build process (search for Sentinels or Pumpkinrot). The LED box was a fun little project, and allowed me to practice fitting things into small cases.
I purchased a couple of small project enclosures (really just tiny plastic boxes) from Sparkfun, whom I just love! I also purchased a very small PCB from them, which created a fun challenge: trying to fit everything on a tiny (0.75″x0.75″) board!
After attaching a rechargeable battery, I managed to cut the right holes into the plastic case to fit everything. It had an on/off switch, and that’s it! Three LEDs, and not a lot of power consumption. We could just toss it into the sentinel’s head, and get a nice glow:
All in all, it was a fun project, and I’m glad I got to play with a simple little circuit. We’ll see what comes up this year!