Geeky dad Michael Schenck and his son Alex did something awesome for Halloween: they built a jack-o-lantern with Lego Mindstorms NXT components inside to give it a robotic twist. From Michael’s description:
What – do you say – is a “Jack-O-Bot” – well, that is what you get when you combine a Jack-O-Lantern and a Robot (A Lego Mindstorms NXT to be exact).
We spent approximately 16 hours the weekend before Halloween in carving the pumpkin, building the robot, programming the “brain” and troubleshooting the finer details. On Halloween, we shared it with several classes of students (grades Pre-K, K, 2, 3, 4 & 6) – and then shared it again that evening at the school’s Harvest Festival – where approx. 150 K-8 students had a chance to interact with the robot as part of the school’s event.
We got the idea while reading our copy of Geek Dad – authored by Ken Denmead.
Stay tuned – as we have plans to combine an upcoming holiday, a rubber turkey & our NXT…
You can also see a great video of Alex presenting the Jack-O-Bot. Well done!
