SPOOKY

It's Halloween!! In honor of this spooky holiday, I'm writing an article about how motion detection technology can be used to make automated haunted houses. Currently, for good haunted houses, you need actors that will jump out at you as you pass by. With motion detection and robotics, there could be (spooky) jump scares without the need for human actors. But how does motion detection work? Let's find out!
A basic form of motion detection is called a "radar-based motion detector". This device sends and receives ultrasonic sound waves. If the waves that are received are different than the waves that were sent out, motion has been detected. A more advanced kind of motion detector is called a "passive infared (PIR)" motion detector. When a human walks in front of the sensor, it detects a sharp increase in infared energy.

That's great and all, but how does it relate to computer science? When browsing the web for information about motion detection and haunted houses, I found an example of a short piece of code you could use to activate your special effects! Everything needs to be digital, so codes and programs are needed to take the information from the motion detectors and create some special effects. The haunted house would also use robots in place of the human actors to scare the customers. The signals from the motion detectors would be sent to the robots, which are coded to do a specific action, like jump out into the room. Sounds and lighting would also work similarly, and would require the use of computer science and coding in order to work properly. Another kind of technology being used in haunted houses is virtual reality and augmented reality. People would wear the virtual reality goggles as they walk through a physical house. So in the near future, all haunted houses may be completely run by technology and computing. Spooky!
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http://www.aforgenet.com/framework/samples/computer_vision.html
http://www.bizjournals.com/orlando/blog/2016/08/universal-orlandos-halloween-horror-nights-to.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motion_detector
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWum0VRc6MI