The Selleck Striker ready for action.

Lisa about to show it who’s boss.

Beer pong!

That’s a lot of facial hair.

The photo is deceiving… that thing is almost four feet high.

So Crushtoberfest is approaching again, and the party plans are in full swing. In case you missed it, Crushtoberfest ’08 was the house party that capped off a six week mustache growing contest among BDC employees and their friends and families. Last year’s feat-of-strength competition featuring the Captains of Crush grippers was a huge success, so we decided to step it up this year.

We liked the idea of a Hi-Striker, the classic carnival game where you swing an oversized hammer and try to ring the bell. But renting a Hi-Striker is not cheap, and we saw the opportunity to build something awesome. So going with the vague carnival theme (and the overt mustache theme) I generated this concept sketch for an electronic Hi-Striker, featuring a larger-than-life Tom Selleck head with light up eyes and fireballs shooting from his ears.

Here’s the plan: The contestant will strike the rubber pad with the hammer, compressing the sealed rubber hose under it. An air pressure sensor attached to one end of the hose will generate an analog voltage (up to 5v), the Arduino Mega will read the voltage and light up the LEDs according to a predefined scale. If the hit is a “ringer” then the LEDs will light all the way to the top, Tom Selleck’s eyes will light up, and fireballs will shoot from his ears. BTW the fireball effect is a flash paper/model rocket ignitor thing we worked out for last year’s party but never used. We also plan to have sound effects go with the LEDs, using the Adafruit Wave Shield for Arduino.

Stay tuned for more.