For our haunted house project, we made multiple parts, some of which acted together and others which acted separately. We had spiders moving up and down on fishing line, hanging above the walkway, a monitor that used an ultrasonic sensor to trigger the movement of the picture’s eyes, a car with a spider attached to it where the same ultrasonic sensor triggered its movement, and a skull with candy inside that would open and close.

The spiders on the fishing line had the line wrap around a simple structure we built, with one attached to each side of two motors. Pegs were placed at different distances and the spiders were wrapped at different distances and directions so the spiders would not all move in the same direction at the same pace.

The monitor was controlled using 2D picture control and an image processing library we downloaded in order to use a JPG in the 2D picture. White and red circles were then drawn on top to represent eyes, with the red pupils moving from one side to the other when the ultrasonic sensor read a value in a certain range.

The car with the spider on it was had its motion triggered by the same ultrasonic sensor used as input for the monitor. To achieve this, we daisy-chained the brick on the car to our main brick on the table. The brick on the car had the two motors of the car plugged in, while the main brick had the ultrasonic sensor plugged in and was plugged into the computer (it also had a motor and a touch sensor plugged in for the skull). When the ultrasonic sensor gave a reading within the set range, both the car would move forward and backward and the eyes would move across the screen.

The skull was opened by placing an axle through the top of the head, attaching fishing line to the axle, and tightening the fishing line by reeling it around an axle on a motor behind the skull. The skull was also secured to the table so it would open instead of being pulled toward the motor. The motor was activated by a touch sensor which had a sign reading “Press for Candy” next to it. After reeling in the line, the skull would return to its closed position by unreeling the line and falling back under its own weight.