Tag: Halloween

Categories
3D Printing 3D Scanning Halloween Sewing / Fashion / Costume

Return of the White Chocolate Skulls, Isis Costume

Return of the White Chocolate Skulls

This year I didn’t have quite enough time to finish my new spider chocolate mold, although I completed and edited a scan of a Halloween themed spider fence I came across in my neighborhood.

Instead of making a new 3D printed chocolate mold (read the full tutorial here), I experimented with new flavors (ginger, chili, amaretto) and new colors (red, red streaked white). The pictures show the 1st batch, bagged up and headed for the new MAKE Providence office at Betaspring. The second batch went out for “reverse trick or treating”, my yearly tradition of going out and giving away candy to everyone I meet.

3D printing PLA trays for the White Chocolate Skulls.


This All Hallows Eve I decided to continue with the goddess theme. Last year I was Kali, this year I was Isis. I made the dress, headdress and matching treat bag (for distributing the skulls) in record time – under 3 hours.

Categories
3D Printing 3D Scanning

White Chocolate Skulls in PLA Trays

Every Halloween I make treats to give away. This year I had two 3D printers at my disposal, so I decided to make 3D printed chocolate mold maker. I used food safe silicone to cast the chocolate mold from the 3D printed mold form. Then I cast many, many chocolates.

The skull is from a 3D scan I created using 123D Catch. I used OpenSCAD script to make a mashup of a parametric box by Thingiverse user acker, and my skull to create the mold maker. I also created trays for the chocolates using the parametric box script.

The candy trays were printed in PLA, so they would relatively “food safe” at least compared to ABS. I cast many, many batches of white skull chocolates and then placed them in the PLA trays. I then placed the trays in treat bags and sealed them with twist ties.

The OpenSCAD code and STL files are all available on Thingiverse:
The Chocolate Skull Mold Maker
Skull with Pointed Teeth (cleaned and repaired scan)
The scan is available from 123D Catch:
My original skull scan (before cleanup)

Bill of Materials

You will need the following items in order to recreate the White Skull Chocolates:

Optional items:

Design Your Own Mold in OpenSCAD (optional)

For those who do not want to design their own mold, you can still play along.  Skip this step and use the provided linked files.

I designed this mold using a mashup of OpenSCAD and a scanned skull. You can also grab the OpenSCAD files, so you don’t have to copy and paste. If you want to play around with the mold code, make sure the vampireSkull_0.2.stl is located in the same directory as the OpenSCAD file.

You can substitute your own STL for the mold, just change the “filename” variable to the name of your STL. Make sure your STL is in the same directory or provide a pathname for this to work.

Print the Mold Maker on a 3D printer

Print the mold form on a 3D printer. If you don’t have a 3D printer, go to your local hacker / maker space / fab lab and rent some time on theirs. If you don’t have any of those near you. you can always use a 3D printing service like Shapeways or Ponoko . You can get the mold files on Thingiverse.

For those following along on their 3D printers at home, I recommend printing the Chocolate Skull Mold Maker with 13% infill and 3 shells.

I have provided two versions of the Chocolate Mold Maker STL file; on with thin walls (1.3mm) and one with thicker walls (2.3mm). The one with thin walls in not completely watertight if you print it with a raft. I used liquid tape on the bottom to make it water tight, but in the end the rubber mold mix was very thick and I don’t think the liquid tape was actually necessary.

The thicker on will take much longer to print. In the end, the thin walls one should be fine to pour the silicone rubber into, but I have only made one mold so far.

Mix and Pour the SmoothSil 940

Take the Smooth On SmoothSil 940 food safe silicone rubber and mix it according to the proportions on the package. Pour into 3D printed chocolate mold maker. Fill mold so that it covers the skulls by about a half inch or close to the top of the mold.

I don’t have access to a vacuum degasser (yet), so to help alleviate possible bubbles from forming in the mold I placed on a subwoofer while music with heavy bass was playing. I also used an electric toothbrush without the brush head attached to vibrate the bottom and sides of the outside of the mold to get bubbles to come to the top.I don’t know how effective these measures are, but I did not have any problems with bubbles or the mold material loosing detail.Let the poured mold set for 24 hours and follow heat curing instructions. Read the datasheet.

Note: I covered the bottom of the “thinner walled mold” with black liquid tape (liquid rubber). You can see it the pictures. I was worried that the model was not completely watertight, but I don’t think it is actually necessary. The Smooth-Sil 940 was so thick that it wouldn’t have leaked out before setting up anyway.

Demold

Demold. You will probably have to destroy the 3D printed form completely. I tore mine completely apart. Some of the skulls have to be removed one by one. Overall it was pretty easy to demold, once I accepted that I was going to destroy the mold maker.

Give the mold a wash with soap and water in the sink. Let it dry completely before attempting to cast chocolate. Water does bad things to chocolate when you are casting it.

Add Slits to the Mold

Cut notches in the mold with a razor blade at the base of the skulls (see the pictures). This will make it much easier to demold the chocolates.

I came across this by accident.After demolding many rounds of chocolates, the base of one of the skulls started to split a little from flexing the mold. I found that it had no impact on the quality of the chocolates coming out of the mold and it made it much easier to demold the chocolates. I cut little notches with a razor blade straight back perpendicular to the base of all of the skulls. (see pic, the notches are only visible if I flex the mold) It makes it much easier to get them out of the mold.

Extract the Soy Lecithin from the Softgels

The soy Lecithin will help with the demolding and has other benefits when used in molding chocolate. I used Whole Foods softgels (available in the supplements isle).

I cut the softgels open and squeezed the oil out. I not very precisely used around two small handfuls of chocolate to the oil contained in 4 Lecithin pills. Discard the softgels after squeezing out the oil.

Melt Chocolate

Get white chocolate melts that do not require tempering. I used these and they worked great. You could use tempered chocolate, but it is not covered here.

Heat chocolate melts in a double boiler. Temperature is very important. While the chocolate melts, use thermometer to measure the temperature. Heat to between 100-105° F. Do not overheat!

While melting the chocolate, add a small amount of Lecithin that we obtained in the last step. I used two small handfuls of chocolate (I have small hands) to oil obtained from four Lecithin softgels. Gently stir the chocolate until it is consistently melted.

I also found that a tiny bit of coco power can give the chocolate a more balanced taste. Just add a sprinkle to the batch.

I made a lot of chocolates, and I don’t have a double boiler, so I experimented with several ways of melting the chocolate.

The first way: A tall pot with half full of water. I put a bamboo steamer basket on top of the pot. I put a small glass mixing bowl on top of the bamboo steamer basket. Chocolate melts go in the mixing bowl. Paper towels go in the top of the steamer basket where it meets the glass bowl so that steam and chocolate do not mix.

The second way (best way): I kept the tall pot, bamboo steamer setup, but switched from using a glass bowl to a chocolate squeeze bottle. I also used a dishtowel to block the steam (see photos). I only had one of these molds (molding material is expensive). After I melted a whole bottle’s worth of chocolate in the glass bowl I poured it into the squeeze bottle. That way I could fill a mold and then heat it back up on the steamer when it was time to refill the mold. Much less mess.

Let the Chocolate Cool

Let the chocolate cool & hold at 96-98° F to work with the chocolate. This will probably take longer than you think. Keep an eye on it and have your mold and tools ready.

If you are going to pour the chocolate into a squeeze bottle or funnel, do it while it is cooling. Keep the thermometer in the chocolate so you can tell when it has cooled down enough to pour into the mold.

Note: I tried a chocolate funnel before I settled on the squeeze bottle method.

While Waiting, Start Printing the Candy Trays

While you are waiting for the chocolate to cool, you can start printing your candy trays. If you don’t have a 3D printer, you will need to plan for this or do with out the trays. Print with PLA filament.

Here is the link to my OpenSCAD and STL files. I did not write this code, I just used the parametric script to create a tray that would fit my chocolates perfectly. Since I did not write the code, I will not paste it, just linke to it. The parametric tray code was written by acker, who derived it from hippiegunnut

Pour the Chocolate into the Mold

Once the chocolate cools, get the chocolate into the mold. You can use any of the methods described so far. The pictures show me using the chocolate funnel.After you pour the chocolate into the mold, use a spatula or butter knife to smooth out the top of the chocolate. Remove any excess on the top of the mold by scraping across the top.

Put the Mold in the Refrigerator

Put the silicone mold containing chocolate into the refrigerator until the chocolate solidifies. (about 20 minutes)

Carefully Demold the Chocolate

These are a little difficult to get out. Wear candy makers cotton gloves to avoid marking the chocolate with your fingers.

Twist the rubber mold to loosen the chocolate. It will help to have small hands (I do and I am able to remove the chocolates without destroying them). I found that after loosing the chocolate by twisting the mold, it is easiest to twist out the face and rotate it out of the mold. Then grab the face and pull to remove the rest of the skull from the mold. You may smear the teeth a little, but overall it seems to work the best.

I have made many batches so far and I managed to get all of the chocolates out of the mold without destroying any of them.

Place Chocolate in Trays

Place Trays in Treat Bags

Give Away to Everyone!

Categories
Halloween Sewing / Fashion / Costume

Making Halloween 2010 – Fairy Costume

Halloween 2010

I finally got around to posting the photos of sewing my 2010 Halloween Costume.

Halloween 2010

Halloween 2010
Halloween 2010

Halloween 2010Halloween 2010Halloween 2010

Costume Breakdown

  • I had made the black dress a few years ago.
  • This year I made a jacket from some shiny red material (see photos below) with slits in the back to allow the wings to come through.
  • Then I sewed the rough edges and covered them with ribbon.  I picked up the wings and wig from a costume store.
  • The wires in the wings were exposed (poking through the fabric), so I covered the ends in heavy felt to keep the wires in.
  • I am wearing Scarecrow fangs that you mold to your individual canines with molding compound, and snap them in. This eliminates the need for a mouthful of plastic and they pop on and off very easily and are very comfortable for a prosthesis.
  • The pointy ears are a latex and attached with a combination of spirit gum, flesh-colored liquid latex, power makeup and liquid makeup.  The ears were also quite comfortable.
  • In addition, I made the scarf / bow by taking a strip of the jacket fabric, turning the wrong sides together, sewing the edge and then turning the entire thing inside out.

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Categories
10 Sensors, Actuators and Displays Arduino / Processing Fab Academy AS220 - Providence, RI Halloween

Motion Sensing Glow Skull

Voodoo Glow Skull

I am ready for Halloween early this year. For my I/O sensor project for Fab Academy I put together a Arduino-controlled motion sensing glowing skull. When motion is detected by the parallax motion sensor, the board turns on the LEDs in the mouth and fades in and out the LEDs glued into the eye sockets.

The Fab Academy Assignment

  • Interface an input device with an output device.

The Project: Motion Sensing Glowing Skull

Voodoo Glow SkullVoodoo Glow Skull

Parts List:

  • 1 Parallax PIR [Pyroelectric (“Passive”) InfraRed)] motion sensor
  • A few lengths of wire
  • 1 Arduino compatible board (I used a Seeduino (Seeed Studios) I had laying around). I like this board because I can flip the power source switch to turn it off / on.
  • 1 9 volt battery
  • Mouth: 10mm Red LED (3)
  • Eyes: 5mm Red Wide-Angle LED (2)
  • 5 in or so metal strip with holes (to house mouth LEDs
  • 3 plastic LED holders (to insulate the mouth LED wires from the metal strip)
  • super glue / hot glue

Prototyping the Circuit / Interaction + Putting It Together:

prototypingprototyping - jumbo LEDprototypingprototypingLED harnessLED harnessGlow!

Code:

The code works – but needs to be modified, right now after the motion is activated, the lights stay on / fade in and out in an infinite loop until the power is switched off. Look for an update to this post.

Arduino code for the LEDs and Parallax PIR Motion Sensor:

/* -----------------------------------------------------------------
 Anna Kaziunas France
 --------------------------------------------------------------------
 Fab Academy - Sensors I/O Module
 Glowing Skull Project
 03/02/2010
 --------------------------------------------------------------------
 Motion Sensor code:
 Motion Sensor code:I have seen this code a few places,
 it is never attributed to anyone in particular.
 I saw it last at: http://www.ladyada.net/learn/sensors/pir.html
 --------------------------------------------------------------------
 LED Fader code by: By David A. Mellis - Created 1 Nov 2008
 Modified 17 June 2009: By Tom Igoe
 http://arduino.cc/en/Tutorial/Fading
 --------------------------------------------------------------------
 Combined / Modified by Anna Kaziunas France - 03 March 2010
 --------------------------------------------------------------------

 --------------------------------------------------------------------
 Purpose of this Program
 --------------------------------------------------------------------
 Read input value from the sensor
 Determine if motion is present (input is HIGH)

 When motion is detected via motion sensor:
 1. Eyes slowly glow red (fade in and out - continue)
 2. Mouth glows (steady)

 When motion is not detected after (length of time)
 Switch off LEDs
 ------------------------------------------------------------------*/

// Variables
int ledPinSolid = 13; // choose the pin for the LED
int ledPinFade = 11; //
int inputPinSensor = 2; // choose the input pin (for PIR sensor)
int pirState = LOW; // we start, assuming no motion detected
int val = 0; // variable for reading the pin status

void setup() {
  pinMode(ledPinSolid, OUTPUT); // declare Solid LEDs as output
  pinMode(ledPinFade, OUTPUT); // declare Fader LEDs as output
  pinMode(inputPinSensor, INPUT); // declare sensor as input

  Serial.begin(9600);
}

// Begin Motion Detection
void loop() {
  val = digitalRead(inputPinSensor); // reading input value
  if (val == HIGH) { // if the input is HIGH
    digitalWrite(ledPinSolid, HIGH); // turn LED ON
    // sets the value (range from 0 to 255):
    analogWrite(ledPinFade, HIGH); // turn LED ON
    // fade in from min to max in increments of 5 points:
    for(int fadeValue = 0 ; fadeValue < = 255; fadeValue +=10) {
      // wait for 30 milliseconds to see the fade in effect
      delay(400);
    }
    // fade out from max to min in increments of 5 points:
    for(int fadeValue = 255 ; fadeValue >= 0; fadeValue -=10) {
      // sets the value (range from 0 to 255):
      analogWrite(ledPinFade, fadeValue);
      // wait for 10 milliseconds to see the dimming effect
      delay(110);
    }
    if (pirState == LOW) {
      // we have just turned on
      Serial.println("Motion detected Huzzah!");
      // We only want to print on the output change, not state
      pirState = HIGH;
    }
  }
  else {
    digitalWrite(ledPinFade, LOW); // turn Fader LEDs OFF
    digitalWrite(ledPinSolid, LOW); // turn Solid LEDs OFF
    if (pirState == HIGH) {
      // we have just turned of
      Serial.println("Motion ended");
      // We only want to print on the output change, not state
      pirState = LOW;
    }
  }
}

Skills Learned

  • Basic wiring
  • Modifing Arduino code
  • How to read a sensor datasheet

Tools Used

  • Arduino
  • Paralax motion sensor