Pumpkin Carving with PICO crickets

Objective: Pumpkin carving and adding the PICO crickets, motors, and sound to the pumpkin.

Time: October 2006

Activity: Today was pumpkin carving time! It was just your everyday run of the mill pumpkin carving, but with the use of the technological PICO, the pumpkins are semi-mobile with Halloweens sounds coming from the insides. To the left the Design IT teens from the Applied Learning Academy (ALA) are working at cleaning and carving the pumpkins as thoroughly as possible before programing the crickets. The teens were split into four groups. Each team member were asked to assign themselves a duty so everyone was able to have a turn with the pumpkin. One of the requirements of the pumpkins was to make something move around it or connected to it to make the pumpkin more interactive. Some other optional programing was to make the pumpkin light up and/or make sounds. All of the groups made two out of the three suggestions. The pumpkins were then displayed in the large window section were Museum School parents and guest were able to interact with the pumpkin through the window. This activity was success and festive for the season. A few of the coaches took the activity to the Boys and Girls Clubs and the Design IT Studios Intern were eager to be involved towards creating their own PICO Pumpkins.

Stephanie cleaning out her pumpkin.















Tim Burton's inspired pumpkin getting ready to come to life.