Flame Throwing Pumpkin

Posted: Tuesday, October 15, 2024 at 07:34 PM | Categories: Arduino, Internet of Things (IoT)

Back in 2019, I decided to finally start work on a Flame Throwing pumpkin project for Halloween. I saw some projects like this in the past, and I wanted to do my own version. Some projects do some pretty sophisticated things to make a flame thrower in a pumpkin (like using a solenoid to push down the nozzle of a spray can (hair spray or WD-40)) but others use a simple air freshener (short spurt) in front of a candle.

I built my pumpkin out of a steel coal bucket because I didn't want to have to carve a large pumpkin every year. I also mounted it on top of a large monster frame to put the flame way above any children's heads.

Anyway, I used this project for several years now, but realized I never published the source code. I finally got around to that yesterday, you can find it here: Sparky, the Flame Throwing Pumpkin.

Here's a video of one of my first tests of the flame throwing mechanism

And here's a full demonstration by our exchange student (at the time) Jannis:

As I prepared for this Halloween, I decided to kill the whole 8 foot tall pumpkin monster and instead build a 48" tall pedestal for just the pumpkin portion. I also thought about refreshing the code, but I decided to put that off until after Halloween this year. My plan is to migrate the project to an ESP32 device and a web app instead of using the remote control relay device. Stay tuned for details on that one.

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Header image: Photo by Sahand Babali on Unsplash