Science And Technology Museum

This painting is actually a Raspberry Pi-powered digital frame designed to scare you

by Miles Warren
November 11,2022

Halloween might still be a month away, but scaring the crap out of your friends is timeless – and all you’re going to need to pull off a killer prank is a Raspberry Pi computer , an LCD panel, and about eight hours of your time. The best part is that you won’t even have to wear a costume.

One inventive prankster has built an amusing digital portrait designed with the sole purpose to freak people out. The high-tech portrait was programmed to unexpectedly turn from a regular human being into an abhorrent monster anytime someone walks past it.

Check out the footage below to get an idea how the portrait works:

To put together this “possessed” portrait, creator Dominick Marino 3D-printed a custom-designed frame that would accommodate the single-board computer and the digital screen. Once he was done prepping the frame, he proceeded to hook it up to his Raspberry Pi 3 B and a 20-inch LCD panel.

Marino says says he then purchased a cheap animated portrait from digital decorations platform AtmosFX and loaded it onto the device. Here is the final result:

The crafty prankster has since documented the steps he followed to build the spooky digital frame in this Hackster.io tutorial . So in case you want to pull off the same elaborate prank on your friends – now you have the blueprint.

  • Miles Warren
  • November 11,2022

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