Raspberry Pi Pico makes this portrait’s eyes follow you around the room

We’ve noticed some of our internet friends celebrating “Christmas in July” recently and, frankly, we think it is absurdly too early to mention the C word. Instead, here’s a Halloween Raspberry Pi build you might like to look at on this sunny August day.

This isn’t the first or even second time we’ve shared an eye-following portrait project on the blog. It won’t be the last. Blame our latent obsession with the decor at theme park haunted house queues.

Hardware

• Raspberry Pi Pico
• Two ultrasonic sensors
• Servo motor
• Fancy frame, if you’re into that kind of thing
• Portrait featuring the creepiest or Halloweeniest face as you can stomach

All images from the maker’s Instructables post

The maker went with a not at all scary George Washington for this example, as they were a bit late to the Halloween party when they built it last year. If you’re getting started early on your Halloween decorations, I recommend an image of Nicholas Cage’s character in the horror film Long Legs for an on-trend choice. (If you’re reading this on a work computer, please note that the film is very much NSFW).

How does it work?

Each eye of the portrait has been cut out and remounted on a foam board with holes poked behind each eye. The wires of each servo motor feed into separate straws, each of which is taped or glued to the back of one of the eyes. A stand for the servo motors was fashioned out of a piece of cardboard which sticks to the piece of foam.

The servos are wired directly to the Pico, as are the ultrasonic sensors. Those sensors pick up when someone is stood in front of the portrait and determine which way to move. The sensors send this directional data back to the Pico, which then triggers the servos to move in the right direction to make the eyes follow the person stood in front of the portrait.

Never too early for Halloween

I hope you’ve gathered that it is never too early to show us your Halloween-themed builds. Please, please, please drop links to anything you’ve made in the comments. We’re already on the lookout for Pi Towers decorations to make this year.

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