Monday, July 12, 2010

A NEW Halloween Resource

This weekend I had found a reference on the Haunt/Halloween forums about Halloween 2 Go, which produce some Animatronic instructionals.

I went to Halloween 2 Go and decided to pick up "Halloween Animatronics Volume 1". I went with the digital download, took me about 5 minutes and I had it. It was only $15 ($25 for DVD w/S&H included).

The video runs at about 100 minutes, the first 10 or so is a 'demo' of what types of animatronics can be done through the video & documentation. The learning starts with some 555 circuits, event triggers & timers, servo controls (based off of the 555 circuits, etc) and then gets into micro-controllers (I prefer PicAxe myself, but they are still Pics & use basic) and even some computer/serial control for servos.

I went with this volume first because I have some experience with electronics (I said 'some') and figured I would know if the info was off/wrong. It's good, though some of it isn't covered in the videos and you are then left to the schematics and if unexperienced it could be a bit daunting.

The other section covers the mechanical side of animatronics, and I must say that I thought this was really solid, practical instruction. There are some good ideas (not necessarily NEW ideas, but) and demos of how they work, how to put them together. I particularly liked the moving eyes/eyelids, there is quite a few really great mechanical ideas on that alone. The moving hands was also very solid.

All in all, I thought it was worth the money. It really puts a bunch of small DIY projects together into one cohesive whole, taking you through the nuts and bolts of putting together a really cool animatronic prop. Thumbs up!

1 comment:

  1. Thanks for the review, I'll have to check it out!

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