Flattery and puns will get you everywhere at Pi Towers. Hence we have crowned Gourdan the pumpkin(g) (and pun king) of Halloween this year.

Gourdan is powered by Raspberry Pi, and his Adafruit LCD eyes have been trained to follow you around the room. Creepy. I like it.

Maker Braden Sunwold and his sister both did the right thing and married Halloween fanatics. So when his brother-in-law announced plans to turn his house into a trick-or-treater paradise this year, Braden couldn’t resist getting his tinkering hands involved.

Hardware and software

• Raspberry Pi 3 Model B
• Two Adafruit LCD displays (for the eyes)
• Raspberry Pi camera
• Shop-bought plastic Jack-o’-lantern
• “About five pounds of hot glue”
• 3D-printed parts (which you can borrow from here)
• All the software you need is on GitHub

How does it work?

 OpenCV runs a basic object detection algorithm to track objects moving past the camera. The LCD displays are driven using the Adafruit GFX and ST7735 graphics libraries. Braden had to stitch the object detection and eye graphics processes together by hand with custom Python code. It all got a bit fiddly but he goes into detail in the original project post if you’d like to follow along and build your own.

Share your creations for this year’s #HackAPumpkin challenge

We saw loads of brilliant builds on Twitter for this year’s #HackaPumpkin. The live showdown was on October 27th, hosted by DigiKey along with Allie Weber (aka @robotmakergirl), Kevin Walseth, and Jorvon Moss (aka @OddJayy).

Here are just a few that caught our eye. Drop a link in the comments to Halloweeny projects you liked or made yourself this year.

Put the monster eyes too good use along with a few pumpkin friends for #hackapumpkin with some last minute arriving parts from @digikey pic.twitter.com/v2j3P1E4qr

— Mark Komus (@MarkKomus) October 27, 2022

Computer Science Foundations class Mountain Vista HS. Circuit Playgrounds coded to match pumpkin theme 🎃!! Funnest day of the year:) #HackAPumpkin #CSforAll @vistanow @MVHSJaffe @RobotMakerGirl pic.twitter.com/3BO27lwDZy

— Michelle Lynn (@melynnTchCS) October 26, 2022

Add some additional spice to your pumpkin with 5 Days until #Halloween we show you how to add an additional feature to the pumpkin eyes using a @Raspberry_Pi Pico. Watch the video below or read our articlehttps://t.co/OzZgHrbq5i. #raspberryPi #stemeducation #HalloweenHavoc pic.twitter.com/eOgzMtX5HY

— GurgleApps (@GurgleApps) October 26, 2022

He’s my entry for #HackAPumpkin challenge 🎃@RobotMakerGirl @digikey – it’s a @Raspberry_Pi Pico powered Pumpkin that gets a fright when anything goes near it! pic.twitter.com/vcLitfazKF

— Kevin McAleer (@kevsmac) October 20, 2022

@digikey #hackapumpkin #circuitpython @adafruit Noods. pic.twitter.com/zp3kIeFvW4

— TreasureDev (@TreasureDev) October 26, 2022

This is Julian, my entry for #HackAPumpkin. He's a little different, but makes up for it with cringe edgypumpkin humour. @RobotMakerGirl @digikey. His quiet friend is called Eddy. (needed a remote to test faster!) pic.twitter.com/qV3cGS3GZ9

— J C (Sickle) 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🇺🇦 (@jonathandotcel) October 20, 2022

You made it all the way to the end. You’re my favourite.