What was once sparingly doled out when the weather turned cool and the leaves started to change is now dumped on consumers by the truckload before the Summer even comes to a close. We’re talking about pumpkin spice, but we can’t decide if this jack-o’-lantern that farts the over-powering scent is an homage to the Fall tradition… or a critique of it.
Why Fall must now be welcomed with a mountain of products that were seemingly exposed to a Yankee Candle store explosion is unknown, but you can now get everything from coffee to Ramen noodles to energy drinks to air fresheners that reek of cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, and allspice. The pumpkin spice fad hits its peak in September and early October, but the YouTube channel The Man Cave (yeah, we cringed a little, too) has found a way to give it one last hurrah as part of their Halloween decor, before the smells and flavours of Christmas — pine needles and candy canes — take over.
An Arduino Uno was used as the brains for this build and was wired to an ultrasonic sensor that can detect the presence of a person unfortunate enough to get too close to this jack-o’-lantern, be it a delivery person or a group of trick-or-treaters. When a person is detected, the Arduino triggers a strong servo motor with a small arm that presses the trigger on a can of pumpkin spice Febreze, spraying the scent out of a hole in the back of the pumpkin.
The decision not to blast anyone who gets too close in the face with a stream of concentrated pumpkin spice is admirable, but it’s probably going to be months before that porch stops smelling like a Starbucks.