And You Thought Your Grandma’s Dolls Were Creepy

Halloween is upon us, and for the geeks, makers, and hackers out there, it’s the perfect time of year to make projects that are more about fun than anything else. A lot of you are probably making intricate costumes—maybe cosplaying as your favorite fictional characters. But, for some people, the best part of the holiday is coming up with decorations to frighten the neighborhood kids.

Cabe Atwell wanted to do just that, and he’s well aware that some of the most terrifying objects around are dolls. For some reason, people choose to put them in their homes as non-ironic decor. For the rest of us, though, they’re just plain unnerving. But, how could Cabe make an already creepy doll even creepier?

The answer he came up with was to make it levitate. His build suspends the doll from fishing line, and lifts it up or lowers it down to make it float. The plan is to suspend it from his porch, and have it levitate as children draw near (at least he’ll save money on candy, as kids run away). This works by reeling the fishing line in on a stepper motor connected to a Gecko 210X stepper controller, which is in turn connected to a Raspberry Pi.

It’s programmed so that the user (Cabe) can set the limits, in order to keep the doll moving in cycles within the perfect range. All he has to do is lower it until it’s laying on the ground, and push a button to set the bottom limit. Then, raise it up and push the button again to set the top limit. Speakers connected to the Pi then proceed to play some creepy music as the doll levitates. It’s a simple project (you still have time to build one yourself!), but the effect is sure to get some scares.