Halloween beginnings

I've decided to start blogging some of the stuff I do in my spare time. First off I want to blog the development of a new Halloween show I'm doing for the house for 2009.

Last year I put on a show involving gravestones, lightning and smoke. This year I'm going to add
a coffin with door that opens as trick or treaters approach, and maybe put a skeleton that rises out of it.

I plan to develop an interface board to allow me to detect voltages and switch relays from the PC
parallel port as this is an easy port to connect to the outside world. The mechanics will be operated with pneumatics.

I started the ball rolling last night buy starting the interface board design and ordered some 12V solenoid valves:



And a pneumatic cylinder to raise the dead with:


This has a 250mm stroke so I'm hoping that with sufficient pressure it will raise a skeleton a la Nosferatu.