Pumpktris lets you play Tetris inside a pumpkin

With the Halloween just around the creepy corner, DIY guru Nathan decided to turn his pumpkin into a video game machine that can play Tetris. Illustrating the details of his project, Nathan explained that he originally wanted to shape pumpkins into Tetris pieces as they grew, then stack them together for Halloween. Realizing the short time he had, he opted to create a pumpkin that can play the classic game of Tetris on it instead. Nathan used 140 amber LEDs, a pair of LED Matrix “backpacks”, and a short handle joystick from SparkFun as its controller.

He then created the LED matrix, soldered short wires into a daisy chain, poked holes into a foam-core board for the LEDs, and did the coding for the game. Nathan had to poke holes once again, this time, into the pumpkin using a drill bit and cut squares outside the holes to make it look more realistic. As for the ingenious joystick, he drilled a hole into the stem and inserted a shaft to act as a controller. If you’ve got lots of time to waste over the weekend, you can follow his DIY project here.

Gene Ryan Briones
Categories: Design, Gaming
Tags: tetris