# Learning the lessons



## fritz42_male (May 5, 2009)

Well, my haunt is over for another year.

Overall it went very well but quite a few lessons learned:

1) Test all your electronic and animatronic props well before Halloween.
I had 2 grave grabbers linked to a PIR light circuit. For some reason they stayed triggered. Also, the hair on one of the props caught in the wiper motor mech causing the motor to stall.

My Nerve Center controller was providing very poor sound and not triggering very well. Dean has offered to look at/replace the unit but I shouldn't have left it to the last few days to try this.

My Grim Reaper Greeter was working perfectly - until the wind blew him over (one of the ladies moved him to a 'better spot' and didn't put the bricks back on the baseplate. I had to do some running repairs and his cowl which had been glued in place then kept falling off. I also forgot to make a decent scythe for him and didn't rescale his arms after reducing his height so his arms looked weird.

2) Allow yourself plenty of setup and decorating time.
I failed to get some of the decorating finished. My cave eyes never got put into the bushes. The webcaster gun was playing up and eventually abandoned. The clothes on the 2 grave grabbers didn't look good enough.

3) Make sure your assistants have a clear idea of what they must be doing. I had a Hallowindow lined up. Because the assistant concerned couldn't figure out some of the projector connectors, they just left the whole thing and didn't let me know and this didn't happen either.

However, the kids all enjoyed themselves and the adults too. The games went down well and most people commented favourably on the props. A particularly well received effect was to usher kids in twos through the 'tunnel of death' - a closed up totally dark passageway with a tall and menacing devil figure at the end. The kids were sent crawling towards the end of the tunnel. Menacing and creepy sounds playing, part way through they started crunching over insects (rice crispies on the ground). As they get near the end of the tunnel, the menacing sounds stop an all of a sudden, strobes start flashing and they see the tall horned devil, outstretched taloned hands ready to grab them and a horrible roar. Wind blows in their faces. They then had to try and get quickly through the door at the end.

Made up in a laundry passage and controlled by a Picoboo F104, this was a wood and PVC frame, rubber devil mask and hands plus clothes. Ambient track on the picoboo followed by a monster track found on Hauntforum. The picoboo was triggered by a PIR with a narrow field of activation so it wouldn't trigger until they were right by the devil. When the PIR triggered, the Picoboo played the roar sound and switched on the strobe and a fan.

This was very popular with all the kids going through twice and some more times than that. Even the adults loved it.

Other than that it was the usual sets of games with prizes and themed food. Another thing not to forget is that kids get hungry - very hungry. There was enough themed food to feed an army and only 20 kids. However, an hour and a half after the food was given out, we ended up ordering 8 pizzas and there wasn't a slice left within 10 minutes!


Next year I'll be going further with the animatronics and using pneumatics as well. I'm going to prep the haunt well in advance and test all the props thoroughly. This year was difficult because all of the adults concerned work quite long hours (Western Australia is starting to boom again) and we were all short on time.

I'll put up pics when I get a chance.


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## RoxyBlue (Oct 6, 2008)

Good advice, fritz. We had similar moments this evening particularly with lighting, as in - "Gee, that prop could have used a spot or something". However, the TOTs still thought we had the coolest house on the block just the way it was, so we can't complain


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## hpropman (Jul 27, 2008)

I learned that lesson myself a few years ago. Now everything gets tested and retested and sometimes I like to have backups too. Like extra controller board, a second mike, a back up computer already configured in case my primary fails, stuff like that. And you can not wait until the last minute to test and build everything. You will just exhaust yourself and some props will be left on the bench. We should add this to the newbie getting started building props guide which I have been thinking of starting for us all to contribute to.


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## fritz42_male (May 5, 2009)

Darn right and next year wll be different. ALL of my props will be modular. All my controllers will use simple connectors (most of my PIR sensors were hardwired in to the screw terminals - I had to change one at the last moment and had to hunt for a screwdriver (the haunt was at a friend's house and he is equipment challenged - doesn't even put his own plugs on!).

I'll probably also move to breakbeam and mat sensors - it was extremely windy and the PIRs were constantly triggering by themselves.

Still, at least we learn by our mistakes.

The guide sounds excellent. One thing that has frustrated me about many of the howtos is that they often don't give measurements - my wiper motor 4 bar grave grabber needed a fair amount of tinkering before I was happy and I'll be reconstrucring it next year to make the movement more realistic - thanks to the CD from blacklightfright.com. Once I have made it, I'll make sure the howto has measurements. I'll also be tinkering with your random head movement picaxe prog to make it run for a specified period AFTER it has been triggered.


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## spinman1949 (Jun 29, 2009)

*Haunt sounds fantastic !!*

Boy your haunt sounds like it was a big hit. Even with the minor glitches.

Just curious. Is this haunt your home, and if it is, how do you invite people? Flyers ? Obviously you are not doing as a TOT's thing. Since we did some major remodeling of our front and backyard I could see doing a haunt.

All our props worked well, although certainly not as complicated as yours. My Greeter worked well, but I think I made the mistake of making the greeting too long. Next year I hope to do something different. Like an interactive between multiple skulls. I am interested in finding out how Meyers prop was received. Jeepers Creepers ( My Wife named him ) was just too darn long winded. Course being crated by a blowhard did not help. LOL !!!


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## fritz42_male (May 5, 2009)

The haunt was at a friends home this year - 3 of us have decided to alternate locations. This adds to the hassle as I'm the one making the props so have to get them to the other locations.

Invites are flyers to our kids friends. The adult party after the kids one is the same - there is some overlap.

Yup, kids have a short attention span. I used a fairly short greeting I found on my Reaper Greeter and added a scary laugh at the end. Other than that it was either big roars of 10 secs, 12 secs of 'Ahh Humans my favourite food, please wait while I dissolve you' on the spitter prop and just a short looping 'Brains, I need Brains, arrghhhhhhh' on the grave grabbers.


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## 5artist5 (Jul 10, 2007)

I had a similar experience with my Frankenstein lab scene. A lot of the kids just didn't have the attention span to stand there and watch the scene play out. Can you blame them? There is free candy a foot! The adults mostly watched it though. 

Out mat sensors worked great. I would like to add some break beams next time though so that we can have props trigger on the grass areas where we can't have mats.

We also re-learned that the lighting is hard to plan for in the daytime. In almost every case we had too much light and we had to go to lower wattage bulbs. 
Overall everything worked out great and should be even better next time!


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## dasjman (Sep 10, 2008)

The biggest leson I learned this year was that I need to get some trigger mats. Everything motion activated went off well until it got dark enough that they just didn't pick up the motion well. The it was me trying to bang on walls to get things to activate or everything was static for the most part.


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## Devils Chariot (May 23, 2007)

I hear your pain fritz. I spent half of Halloween day fixing props that had worked perfectly right up until then. Half of the leds spot I made, and had actually tested two weeks ago didn't work. Foggers kept acting up even though they were new. Luckily the TOTs don't know what was supposed to work so they didn't even notice.


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## fritz42_male (May 5, 2009)

Electronics can be a bugger - I used to assemble computer boards about 3 decades ago. I'd test them, then drop them on the bench from a height of 6 inches then test them again. Repair an retest until reliable.

My main experience is that PIRs are NOT the way to go for outside props - triggering is too uncertain. I'll be modifying for breakbeam and mats next year.

As you say though, TOTers don't care - they are running on adrenaline!


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## 5artist5 (Jul 10, 2007)

fritz42_male said:


> they are running on adrenaline!


...and sugar!


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