Ask HN: Good resources for DIY-ish animatronic kits for Halloween?

For complete animatronics kits, have a look at https://www.bottango.com/pages/kits They are not cheap, but very educational.

You could buy a HalloWing from Adafruit and build something around it: https://www.adafruit.com/product/3900

Many Halloween effects can be done with a simple wiper motor: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCeBxc0fj-UUayo01ei0B7wQ

Also very popular for instructions: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKKBTwYyVYxkpa0_9pqQ13A Steve Koci, the creator, has sadly passed away, but his book "The Ultimate Guide To Do It Yourself Animatronics" might be worth a look.

There’s tons of YouTube videos for Halloween maker stuff. Just search for Halloween maker.

Toby Horrorboy is great:

https://youtube.com/@tobyhorrorboy

Search YouTube for “Furby Hacking”.

Buy some used Fur Real animatronic toys for a few bucks from Facebook marketplace and hack on them with your kids.

Make a spooky UFO scavenger hunt in the park with electronic gadgets.

I usually get the Halloween/Fall edition of Make Magazine, which has a ton of projects. They have a selection of them on their site: https://makezine.com/tag/halloween/.

The current issue doesn't seem that Halloweeny, but if you can get the back issues they are fun to have for decor, too.

I remember watching this video (& several others by the same creator) and thinking that I should really get around to doing some of this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jk3ZsyrTU4M

My plan is to make a few zombies, one of a zombie child ignoring human flesh while they stare at their phone, and then another zombie teenager stumbling towards a sign that says "YouTube influencer career."

When we were at Spirit Halloween last week I saw some building blocks like drops and swinging mechanisms for DIY.

A few solid starting points for DIY animatronics:

Adafruit + SparkFun: Great for beginner-friendly electronics (servos, sensors, microcontrollers).

Arduino-based Halloween projects on GitHub – lots of open-source code for motion + sound effects.

YouTube channels like Make:, Animatronics How-To, and DIY Creature Workshop often show step-by-step builds.

If you want to go deeper, look into Raspberry Pi-controlled props for more complex movement + audio sync.

For something quick and spooky, even a simple PIR motion sensor + servo motor setup can create a fun jump-scare effect.