Hey, I was just sitting here at work and I had an idea for an animatronic scarecrow that would scream and try to tear itself off of it's mounting pole or act like it was trying to attack a victim. I've never done anything like this before and was hoping for some brainstorm support on what I can use to make this move.
Also, there is a site out there someplace that tells how to make a freshly dug grave prop but for the life of me I cant find it in my favorites and I can't remember the name of it. Help!
I think that the scarecrow idea is a good one, I would use a pneumatic cylinder to accomplish this, by constructing the prop to go from its seated position to a lowered position. You could also use a pneumatic type device to make it lunge towards your guests. Unfortunately, the concept is acheivable but costly the same. Personally, I would sacrifice, and accomlish half of your concept and save some money. As we all know, you can do whatever you want, but it always comes down to how much do you want to spend. As for the freshly dug grave, again, you can make your prop do what you want, by either electric or pneumatic means. I would most likely constuct my freshly dug grave to contain some sort of driver, most likely consisting of a pneumatic cylinder, which will driver your prop in whatever direction you choose. Being that I am a beginner, I urge you to contact some of the bigger boys. Kickthefog.com may be a place for you to go, being the the webmaster has much interest and experience with these things. He may even give you a more simplified and improved way of doing what you want to do.
Thanks, guys, I was wondering if a pneumatic device might work, but I think it might be a little much. My original thought was to have the scarecrow hanging on his poles, almost crucified like, then when the guest gets close, the scarecrow would spring to life and try and get at the person. The more I think about it, the more I think the scarecrow itself is going to have to be a lot like a marionette puppet with a lot of wires, so that when the motor, or what ever, gets activated, the arms, head, and other body parts react at the same time. But I've only got 290 some odd days to figure it out, and some of that has got to be construction time.
Maybe you could do this with one cylinder mounted centrally, pushing down on a roller that steel cables would be fastened to from all of the extremities, thereby influencing their movement. Hinges at neck, arms or hands, jerky movement as the slack in the cable is taken up by the cylider pushing, tightening the cables.
Some strong rubber bands or elastic at the ends of the cables would give it some needed "give" in the adjustment to ease up the extreme yank, that could be breaking something when activated.
I also recommend using steel anytime to replace wood for the framework to hold the hinges and everything together.
"My Insanity is well-respected, until they wiggle free and become a stringer for a tabloid"
There are a few ways to do it. The air cylinder being the easiest and cheapest if you have the compressor already. Do you have one?
Another cheap way is to set up a release mechanism but it would have to be set and reset manually. Imagine the scarecrow on the post. The scarecrow itself would be rigid and have a board the length of his body inside him. Attach a hinge near it's feet so that it would lean forward. A cable would be attached to his head to prevent it from leaning too much.
You could also rig up a hinge system that would look like and inverted "N". That way as the one hinge drops the scarecrow and post remain parallel.
As for the freshly dug grave you could use burlap and use adhesive to attach moss to it. You can find it at Michaels. Then put a motor with a cam under the burlap. The cam would push up and down on the burlap makeing it look like a corpse it trying to dig his way through.
You Guys ROCK! I'm starting to see this a lot better in my head thanks to you, now I can start putting some things on paper. I'll have more as soon as I work this over for a little while.
As for the grave prop, the one I originally saw was one where the person took a piece of plywood and covered it with some stuff(?) then painted it to look like dirt, but your ideas of constructing it to actually do something is making me think in a whole new direction.
Thanks!
I like it! I would like to try it some year. I have been wanting to make a giant Sleepy Hollow style scarecrow for some time. An added scare tactic is icing on the cake.
<center>“by the Pricking of My Thumbs, Something Wicked This Way Comes.”</center>
Yess! I Loved the Sleepy Hollow scarecrows, I thought they were really cool looking. I first got the idea about four years ago by accident. We planted a garden in my wifes aunts' yard, and I thought a garden needed a scarecrow since I'd never had an opportunity to build one before. It sat out there all summer and fall and really weather worn. Then, as it turned out, we wound up over there on Halloween, and decoration wise they only one puny little jack-o-lanturn. So I ran out to the back yard, yanked it out of the garden, and stuck it up by the front door. It looked pretty good and I'd always planned on trying it again. But now this forum has given me so many new ideas, I've just got to do something cool with them. I must admit I was a little surprised not to see the idea already used.
I've always liked the Scarecrow villian from the Bat Man comics too.
Scarecrow Idea
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