Halloween season always inspires tons of coolRaspberry Piprojects and we’re always tickled to share them with our readers. Today we’ve got another cool example to show off, this one created by maker and developerPoke08. Using our favorite SBC, he’s put together an impressively spookyHalloween eye.
This eye does a lot more than just look cool, it’s interactive, as well. It’s designed to move automatically, darting around the room keeping locked on targets. Poke08 programmed the eye to identify people and keep its gaze focused on them the whole time. Not only does it keep a creepy focus on passers-by, it also speaks using text-to-speech.
Poke080 shared a demo video of the Halloween eye in action. In it, we get a good look at the eye’s movement and ability to track targets. It’s illuminated from the inside with RGB LEDs to glow red, occasionally flashing green. It could theoretically be programmed to say anything but in the video, we hear a nice welcoming “Happy Halloween!”
The main board driving this optical illusion is aRaspberry Pi Zero 2 W. It’s connected to a couple of stepper motors and a camera module in the middle of the Iris. The hardware is mounted inside of a 3D printed body that Poke08 printed using aCreality Ender 3 Pro—a printer we reviewed with a rating of 4 out of 5 stars.
The face tracking is handled using aGoogleUSB Coral Accelerator. This provides the Pi Zero 2W with a little extra power for AI processing using an Edge TPU coprocessor. To tackle the facial recognition, Poke08 is using CodeProject.AI, a free and open source AI server that can run locally using Windows or a Docker container.
The newRaspberry PI AI Cameracould be used for a project like this. It has the power to track people, and the GPIO can be used to drive the stepper motors (via a driver board) and the RGB LED.
If you want to get a closer look at thisRaspberry Piproject in action, you can check it out over atYouTubeand read more about its construction in the threads Poke08 shared toReddit.
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Ash Hill is a contributing writer for Tom’s Hardware with a wealth of experience in the hobby electronics, 3D printing and PCs. She manages the Pi projects of the month and much of our daily Raspberry Pi reporting while also finding the best coupons and deals on all tech.