Plastic pumpkins present unique building challenges, as everybody (who bothers to think about it) knows. The curved shape of the pumpkin makes it difficult to stick your hands inside to attach wires to terminal blocks. Therefore, we attached the wires from most components — like switches and speakers — to terminal blocks on the breadboard before placing them in the pumpkin or attaching the components to the side of the pumpkin. Wrap each lead of the IR detector and microphone in electrical tape after they have cooled from soldering to make sure that the bare soldered leads don’t touch each other. Leads co-mingling in this fashion can cause minor electrical disasters.

We used a utility knife and small wire cutters to cut the holes in the plastic pumpkins. Make sure that the plastic is not too brittle, and be sure to wear safety goggles to protect your eyes against flying pumpkin pieces and leather work gloves to protect your hands. We placed some foam in the bottom of the pumpkins on which to rest the breadboards. The type of foam used for flower arrangements is easy to cut, but it’s so fine that particles go everywhere. The foam that you find in packing boxes will also shred, but the pieces are bigger and a little easier to clean up. In either case, plan to spend some time cleaning up your cutting surface afterward and don’t cut on your electronics bench — you don’t want those foam pieces to get into the electronics bits and pieces.