Every year, my daughter and I expand our Halloween display in the front yard. We added a Trashbag Spider with Kicking Legs this year. The trick-or-treaters seemed to enjoy the display. We had many questions from the younger ones, concerned that we didn't put a "real" kid under there.
Our original imspiration was a display made by Scary Terry. The prototype (videos below) shows the same basic setup, only with kid-sized legs:
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Ultimately, we decided that it wasn't a good idea to leave an unattended lawnmower in the front yard. Instead, we grabbed some plastic conduit from the local Home Depot and fashioned the eight spider legs in a single afternoon. The assembly process only requires a hacksaw, and is completely kid-friendly.
Eight deck screws were driven into the base plate of the legs-machine, and the spider legs were simply slipped over the screws. There's no load on the spider legs, so gravity did a fine job of holding everything together. A trashbag stuffed with crumpled newspaper made the spider's abdomen, while another bag made the head. Eyes and pincers were just taped or stapled in place. A trashbag "skirt" was wrapped around the base to conceal the mechanical movement. Darkness does wonders for hiding any minor imperfections. Don't worry about making it perfect, the kids will be more interested in the moving legs than anything else.
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The whole system runs on 12V supplied by a discarded PC. The power supply was removed, and wires grafted onto the 12V supply lines. 16AWG wire for outdoor low-voltage lighting was draped across the yard and staked down with tent pegs. A single 12V garden light provided some illumination on the display, as it was pretty difficult to see in the dark. Final conenctions were made with wire nuts. The video doesn't do it justice, but it was fun watching people in cars stop and look.
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