The Santa Trap

Here's a fun Christmas-themed Arduino project using a metal sensor, water sensor, and flame sensor to create an elaborate trap to catch that notorious fat, red, Yuletide intruder "Santa Claus".

Using a mince pie, glass of milk, and a lit candle as bait, an Arduino monitors the three sensors to detect when the fat man has fallen into the trap. When he unwittingly eats the mince pie (removing its aluminium foil case from the metal sensor), drinks the milk (draining the conductive liquid from the water sensor), and blows out the candle (so that the infrared radiation from the flame is no longer detected by the flame sensor), the Arduino triggers a relay which releases a maglock, dropping the cage and capturing the festive trespasser.

The same sensors could easily be used in a wide variety of Escape Room puzzles, in which the player needs to either add, or remove, a source of metal, water, or flame in order to solve a puzzle.

Timings
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00:00-03:37 Demonstration
03:38-10:22 Explanation of Components Used
10:22-12:42 Wiring
12:43-22:43 Arduino Code
22:44-23:47 Wrap-Up

For more details on this or other similar projects I've done, please check out my Patreon page at   / playfultech