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10 Halloween Costumes Electrical Engineers Can Geek Out About

October 28, 2015 by Jennifer A. Diffley

Halloween's almost here! Freaking out about having nothing to wear? Grab an Arduino and lose your inhibitions-- here comes the costume breakdown.

Halloween's almost here! Freaking out about having nothing to wear? Grab an Arduino and lose your inhibitions-- here comes the costume breakdown.

1. Ghostbusters Proton Pack

Sure, you could always swing by WalMart and pick up a Ghostbusters costume...if you're a quitter. This proton pack has lasers, which is rad, but I'm pretty sure AAC's community could figure out a way to incorporate smoke and projected ghosts. And of course you'd need to build a giant inflatable Stay Puft Marshmallow Man for the front yard. It's only natural.

2. Arduino Medusa Headpiece

Some creative genius managed to rig a bunch of robotic arms with an Arduino to make a real-looking slithering Medusa headpieces. This may be the best part of having a maker for a dad. Watch the video to see Dave Spencer's creation and get his step-by-step assembly. He's also made a few other robotic outfits that are equally impressive.

3. The Electronic Demon

Phil Burgess over at Adafruit has managed to make this freaking amazing demon costume using a voicechanger, animated LEDs, and a Unix demon voice. This is guaranteed to make at least one neighborhood child soil himself in terror, which should be enough motivation to attempt this project. Follow the link for a tutorial. 

4. Michael Jackson's Billie Jean Shoes

I basically want the ground under my feet to light up as I walk. I also basically want to be able to dance like Michael Jackson. The latter is impossible, but the former is relatively easy. Check out the link for an overview on how to do it. 

5. The Living Arduino

What better way to build an Arduino costume than to actually become the Arduino? Angela Melick is a mechanical engineer and adorable living Arduino board. Check out her blog for details of the costume. She also has a fun web comic to check out.

6. The Tron Suit

This LED-powered costume looks great at night. Would look even better with the Tron Motorcycle, but if you aren't willing to invest $55,000 in your Halloween costume, I guess you can just go with the suit. The link shows the basic concept.

7. The Working Game Boy

Yes, it's a working, wearable Game Boy powered by Raspberry Pi. Inserting the various cartridges in the back communicates with the Raspberry Pi to tell it which games to load. If you're comfortable with people pressing your buttons, this is a great costume.

8. Static-mouthed Clown

This is actually really simple: pull up a GIF of static on your smartphone and just insert it into your mask. The company behind the idea has their own app and sells the mask if you don't feel like investing time in recreating it.

9. The LED Minnie Mouse

Alright, fine: this is adorable. Again, a relatively simple idea of using LED lights against a black suit. What makes this compelling is that most kids' costumes don't incorporate electronic elements (which is a shame). This would look great for trick-or-treating and the little girl clearly loves it.

10. Mutant Cyborg Pumpkin

Well, this thing is weird and wonderful. The costume uses LEDs and circuits to make a cyborg pumpkin mutant. Because obviously. Head over to Make for instructions on how to pull this off.

This year's costume roundup was pretty spectacular. If you have costume ideas you want to share, send 'em our way!

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