The Nightmare Machine

Author Archives: jerry@earthkicks.com

Chapter 7: Pod lighting

March 08, 2015 Kriby’s son Alec had a school project on Greek Mythology and they worked on a costume. Hope designed a Pegasus on the shield cut from pink Styrofoam. We installed the 2 strands of 50 Pixel lights into the top of the OctoPod. The roof of the pod was pegboard and the individual […]

Chapter 6: Control Panel Lighting

March 01, 2015 The manufacturing of the fake corn and stalks was completed along with a scenic corn field backdrop. We used the tarp that the corn was painted green on. It already had some of the corn stalk outlines. Hope finished it out to make it look like a corn field.   The door […]

Chapter 5 : Handmade/ homemade Corn Stalks

February 28, 2015 From Heidi… “Last Sunday we completed Build #5.   We made 24 stalks of corn without getting high, Jose repaired the “turd” door on the pod AND got the router working so that we could cut some really cool panels for the front.” It was decided that one of the scenes was going […]

Chapter 4 : Control Panels

February 21, 2015 A roof is added to the pod. Using scrap peg board painted black, the roof is added. We latter made use of the holes in the peg board to insert Pixel LEDs into.   Several view port ideas where discussed quickly put to the test. The final idea was to use metal […]

Chapter 3 : 3D OctoPod Takes Shape

February 13, 2015 Serious work begins on the OctoPod. The pod takes shape…the walls are built and erected and bench seat is added to the inside.    

Chapter 2 : First Build

January 31, 2015 Our first build was held at Ron’s Halloween in Indianapolis. He has a store with an adjacent Haunted House call the Haunted Angelus where Jose’ is the creative director and master builder. January is cold in Indiana and the store was closed and the heat was turned off. Jose’ gathered the initial […]

Chapter 1 : The Birth of the Idea

January 18, 2015 We met in the basement of my house and discussed our plans on a haunted house room for Great Lakes Fright Fest. We discussed a lot of different aspects of the project… theme, construction, readiness, size, and time. One of the first concerns was the size of the room. Rooms were allocated […]

The “OctoPod”

January 18 – May 22, 2015 What happens when a group of Halloween enthusiasts come together to work on a Haunted House room for final Great Lakes Fright Fest? Something amazing! What is Great Lakes Fright Fest Haunted House? It’s a camping gathering for Halloween enthusiasts. A Haunted House is constructed for the weekend under […]