A few months ago, we covered a wonderful Alexa hack: turning a Big Mouth Billy Bass into a home assistant. That’s great, but what if you wanted to take away Billy’s flesh, and also turn him into a human head? Well, you’d be left with a creepy talking skull, and that’s exactly what Mike McGurrin made with his Alexa hack
Brought to our attention via Mashable, The Yorick Project—presumably named after the soul-shepherding League of Legends character—is a spooky mod of a Halloween decoration that props its head up when you say “Alexa,” tilts its head around while processing your input, and moves its jaw up and down while talking to you. It’s like if a creepy animatronic skeleton from a horror movie theme park ride answered your screams of terror. This is far less scary, though, since instead of telling you it’s time to die, it lets you know what the weather’s gonna be like tomorrow.If you’re feeling adventurous and want to try making one of these yourself, McGurrin documented his process in great detail on hackster.io. The main components are the skull, an Alexa, and a Raspberry Pi, and the page also includes all the code you’ll need to get this up and running. McGurrin’s setup is nice, but honestly, we’d love to see this head attached to a full skeleton, or perhaps dressed up like a skeleton butler or something. What we have here is a talking skeleton head, so let us know how you think this would be used best.
Featured Image: ViennaMike
