Nov 9, 2024

How to Automate your Murder Mystery

The lights go out, room by room. A sound effect plays. The murder is revealed, all orchestrated by simple home automation.

#1about 1 minute

Automating a murder mystery party for an immersive experience

An overview of murder mystery parties and how software automation can be used to create a more engaging and tech-enhanced experience for guests.

#2about 1 minute

Creating a digital suspect list to track characters

A custom web app with photos solves the common party problem of remembering who's who among the many characters.

#3about 2 minutes

Building the UI with Svelte and a Convex backend

Svelte was chosen for its built-in CSS and animation support, while Convex provides a real-time database and backend with TypeScript integration.

#4about 3 minutes

Automating image processing and cropping with Thumbor

Thumbor's machine learning-powered face detection automatically crops and filters photos, simplifying the process of adding new guests to the suspect list.

#5about 4 minutes

Using home automation for a dramatic death scene

Home Assistant and Node-RED are used to orchestrate a sequence of smart lights and sounds, creating a dramatic and memorable murder scene.

#6about 2 minutes

Building a physical treasure chest with an electronic lock

A standard paper-based puzzle is upgraded into an exciting physical prop by installing a custom electronic lock inside a treasure chest.

#7about 2 minutes

How an electromagnet, relay, and circuit work together

The electronic lock is built using an electromagnet to hold the lid shut, a relay to act as a programmable switch, and a simple power circuit.

#8about 3 minutes

Controlling the lock with a Raspberry Pi and Node.js

A Raspberry Pi controls the relay via its GPIO pins, using a simple Node.js server with the `onoff` library to toggle the lock via HTTP requests.

#9about 1 minute

Creating a simple password entry app with SvelteKit

A minimal SvelteKit application with no client-side JavaScript provides a simple HTML form to enter the password and unlock the chest.

#10about 3 minutes

Key takeaways on creative software and hardware projects

Hardware projects are more accessible than they seem, and combining software skills with other hobbies can lead to uniquely creative and fulfilling outcomes.