Build Instructions

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• 1

  Print the Tombstone

  This is the arts and crafts part of the project. There are three parts to the finished tombstone: the base, the detailed front plate and the back plate. All parts print flat on their back with any standard print settings. No support is needed.

  The front plate needs to be glued on the base. Crazy glue or epoxy will work. The back plate is snap fit meant to be able to come on and off to turn the project on and off and access the battery.

• 2

  Paint the Tombstone (Optional)

  While it is entirely optional painting the tombstone adds that extra level of fun and scariness! Do not let me limit what you do with yours, but I primed all the pieces grey and then painted them all with a medium grey acrylic. The letters and bones were then painted white and green was added around various areas to simulate vegetation / moss.

  Finally I did a black wash to give it the aged look. For those who have never attempted a wash before, get some black paint on your brush, dilute it pretty heavily with water and coat the model. Then wait, I usually waited about 30-60 seconds. Then wipe the paint off gently with a paper towel or similar.  You need to be gentle as you want some black paint to remain.

• 3

  Install CircuitPython and the Tombstone code

  Before all the electronics are inside it is easiest to do the setup. The project runs on CircuitPython (was written for 6.3 but should work on anything newer too) so the first step is to ensure the Hallowing has CircuitPython installed. If it does not see the Hallowing guide to get it installed. You will also need the adafruit_imageload, adafruit_led_animation, adafruit_uc100 and neopixel libraries.

  The python code to run the tombstone can be found here on GitHub in the code-distance.py file. You will have to rename this file to code.py on the Hallowing.

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