Halloween costumes straight from the store (brick and mortar or online) vary in quality. If you end up with a less than impressive ensemble, you can always piece them together. Instructables user MarlonHeimerl came up with an LED astronaut design made from various pieces from a Darth Vader costume, a Master Chief package from Halo, and a SWAT costume. A word of caution: the tutorial is basically an ad for Halloween Costumes, but that doesn’t it mean it’s not useful. Seeing how the costume pieces are transformed might help you with planning your next original outfit.
Take the helmet. It started as a catcher’s helmet and bike helmets from a used sporting goods store and became a light-up helmet that fits with an astronaut costume. Here’s how he modified it:
Get those nasty old pads out of the helmet, remove the facemask and give the mask a good wash with LOTS of soap and water. Last thing you need is to contract a nasty Earth-bug from the local inhabitants. Duct tape the back-cap of the helmet (which was previously attached by vinyl in two separate helmet pieces) to the main part of the helmet like in the picture below.
This builds in some flexibly later for slipping the helmet on and off, since there is “give” and strength in the duct tape in multiple layers all at once. But make sure it fits over your head before proceeding any further.
Take your two old bike helmets from Good Will or perhaps from your garage from summers past – ideally one adult and one child helmet – and cap the catcher’s helmet on the top and back with the adult and kid’s helmets, respectively.
Yet again, duct tape is a fast and admittedly amazing tool for all things – perhaps Earth’s greatest contribution to the intergalactic list of utilities. Don’t be afraid to trim excess plastic on either the back or top helmet to get it to readily fit. Surprisingly, all three pieces fit together quite nicely without much adjusting.
Now is a good time to tape your LED pens in place. This part was pretty simple since the original catcher’s helmet already had two small holes symmetrically drilled through the top.
Slide your pen lights through the holes and tape them down on the inside. Be careful not to tape the battery cases down, because leaving them untapped makes it easy to change the batteries in the future.
Read more at Instructables.
HAPPY HALLOWEEN! Each weekday this month we’ll be bringing you ideas and projects for an Electronic Halloween! Expect wearables, hacks & mods, costumes and more here on the Adafruit blog! Working on a project for Halloween this year? Share it with us on Google+, in the comments below, the Adafruit forums, Facebook, or Twitter— we’d love to see what you’re up to and share it with the world (tag your posts #ElectronicHalloween). Tune in to our live shows, Wearable Electronics with Becky Stern, 3D hangouts with Matt, Pedro, and Noe, and Ask an Engineer, featuring store discount codes, ideas for projects, costumes, and decorations, and more!
