Creating an electrical gag gift

  • Thread starter Thread starter Crispy7
  • Start date Start date
  • Tags Tags
    Electrical
Join the discussion
Ask a follow-up here, or get your own question answered by working scientists, mathematicians and engineers — people, not an autocomplete.
Real named experts · corrections over time · the nuance an AI answer skips
5 replies · 2K views
Crispy7
Messages
1
Reaction score
0
hopefully this post makes sense:/ I am in the process of creating a product that is a gag gift. The gag gift will be electrical and will be activated once the box that it is in is opened. I am wondering if anybody has any ideas on how I can get the product to recognize when the box is being being opened so that It can activate? For example could I have a magnet on the top of the box and on the side a box and when the magnets separate it will send a small radio frequency to the product? Any ideas anybody has would be greatly appreciated thank you in advance!
 
Engineering news on Phys.org
I built one of these for a game called Assassin. When a hollowed out book was opened, a bank of disposable camera flashes went off in the victim's face, simulating being blowed up.

It is a simple matter of attaching a loop of wire to the box lid - hooked to another loop inside the box. Most of both loops are left insulated - only the last inch is exposed. When the box is opened, the bare wires are brought into contact, closing the circuit.

(The reason you use loops is so that there's no chance they can become detached from each other.)
 

Attachments

  • box-bomb.png
    box-bomb.png
    3.5 KB · Views: 495
Last edited:
  • Like
Likes   Reactions: Mike_In_Plano
Crispy7 said:
hopefully this post makes sense:/ I am in the process of creating a product that is a gag gift. The gag gift will be electrical and will be activated once the box that it is in is opened. I am wondering if anybody has any ideas on how I can get the product to recognize when the box is being being opened so that It can activate? For example could I have a magnet on the top of the box and on the side a box and when the magnets separate it will send a small radio frequency to the product? Any ideas anybody has would be greatly appreciated thank you in advance!

Simple -- use a microswitch to provide power to your circuit: https://www.google.com/search?hl=en...sedr...0...1ac.1.61.img..0.11.720.GPmv37EzgVc

What does the gag do?
 
Or that. You could do that too... o0)
 
You could also use a small magnet in the lid and use a reed switch in the box itself.
 
For a simple - box lid activated switch... use a paper clip, wax paper and aluminum foil... make a sandwich of alu foil and wax paper - wax paper connected to the lid, then the aluminum foil as the "turn on" for your circuit// all clamped in the box. When they open the box they remove the wax paper and complete the circuit between the alum foil.