Thunder Mansion

Freaky shaking haunted mansion.... on vimeo

Made by Oregon Museum of Science and Industry (OMSI)

Major Components

a shaker - the saber saw ~$10 used

teensy3.2 uController - $19.95

teensy audio shield and uSD card- $14

white LEDs, I used these, but you could use these

120vac power relay for turning ON/OFF the saber saw

Mosfets for turning LEDs ON/OFF. One for each floor.

cardboard house with plastic windows

speakers

Optional:

pumpkin

motion sensor

button

Step 1: Your House

The house is made out of cardboard. There are miniature plastic skulls, bats, and cats that were laser cut out of plastic.

Step 2: Electronics

I was responsible for the electronics on this project. It was super easy.

A 12volt power supply powers the LED modules. Two modules per floor. Each floor has a teensy pin to trigger its mosfet.

Pin 0 on the teensy triggers the saber saw via a power switch tail or other suitable relay.

The teensy audio shield provides a 1/8" output to an amplifier/speaker.

Programming: gitHub

One sound file (raining and thundering) plays constantly or when triggered by a button. Other screams, hollers, and thundering sounds occur intermittently, layered on top of the raining using the polyphonic abilities of the teensy. All the sound files are WAV 44.1khz, 16bit CD quality stored on the SD card. Here is the teensy documentation.

During the lighting and screaming the lights trigger and the saber saw is triggered for shaking.

The arduino file is attached.

Step 3: The Shaker

the shaker is a saber saw.

It's mounted under the base and attached to a member that pivots and pushes back and forth against the doll house.

Step 4: Putting It All Together

The house rests loose on the base plate. There are no screws between the house and the base plate, so the house can get pushed back and forth by the saber saw's pivot arm.