The Best Use of Alexa We’ve Seen So Far

Having an assistant is great, especially if it’s one that can answer all your questions and demands, at any hour, even from home. Like Amazon’s Alexa. One guy knows that too well so it took Alexa in and gave it a twist you’re bound to see only on Halloween #objectmagic

Mike McGurrin loves to decorate his house on Halloween. For a couple of years now, he’s been gathering all sorts of creepy props that can be animated to react in ways he wants to. The best of them are talking skeletons. In the past, Mike turned them into singing scarecrows by using a PIR sensor and an Arduino micro-controller. Now, though, he’s gone a bit farther with the practical joke, inspired by the Billy Bass project.

It all began with a talking skull with moving eyes, received as a present from his wife in 2015, at Christmas. It was meant as an upgrade for his past skeletons, going from moving jaw to animated jaw and eyes. But Mike thought better and took it upon itself to give Alexa a scarier look. He used a Raspberry Pi, the AlexaPi software, an audio servo controller that uses the output sound to send commands for the jaw and a servo controller for movements of the skull (eyes, tilt, etc).

Project Yorick (get it?!) was born:

Now, I don’t know how creepy this is to you… but to us, Yorick is simply hilarious and weird. Overall, Mike’s project is the best, most creative use of Alexa we’ve seen in a while now.

What do you think?