Halloween is coming at us, slowly however certainly, just like the antagonist in a slasher movie. Because the official Vacation of Makers (we took a vote), everybody in our group is scrambling to complete turning their most ghoulish concepts into actual decorations. And although the Pirates of the Caribbean film franchise is strictly identified for its horror, it does have spooky components. Impressed by the eponymous storage trunk in Lifeless Man’s Chest, Grendel Studios’ Erik Finley constructed this elaborately locked chest containing an ominous beating coronary heart.
In Pirates of the Caribbean: Lifeless Man’s Chest, the title refers to a literal chest (the type used to carry gold and jewels) containing the still-beating coronary heart of Davy Jones. Sure, the lore of the franchise received fairly convoluted someplace alongside the best way. Finley recreated all of that with a chest, full with a key and locking mechanism, that holds an anatomically appropriate coronary heart that beats loud sufficient to be heard from anyplace close by.
The chest is a 3D-printed affair, with heavy-looking “bolts” across the rim of the lid. When the person inserts a key, which Finley constituted of welded metal for energy, and turns it within the lock, these bolts disengage and come out. They’re simply ornamental and actuated by servos, however the impact is de facto cool. And the lock itself is purposeful — anybody who desires to open the chest will want both the important thing or a willingness to interrupt issues.
An Arduino Nano R4 board controls these servos, in addition to one other set contained in the star of the present: the guts. That has a smooth, squishy outer shell constituted of silicone poured right into a mould. That shell matches round an internal core that includes a really intelligent mechanism to imitate the motion of a throbbing coronary heart. Two high-torque servo motors push out rhythmically and the impact with the silicone shell in place is sort of convincing.
The ultimate piece of the puzzle was incorporating sound results, which Finley achieved utilizing a DFRobot DFPlayer Mini Participant related to a speaker beneath the chest. That performs the unmistakable beating sounds which might be so delightfully foreboding.
Finley truly showcased this construct at Open Sauce 2025 and so you will have seen it there. However if you happen to missed it, the chest may even make an look at Maker Faire Rome in just a few weeks.
