Gallery: 7 Halloween Costumes With High-Tech Appeal
01nikon-costume
Halloween isn't just for kids in knockoff Disney costumes. The holiday has become ground zero for geek-themed cosplay, and allows more DIY-oriented tech nerds to explore wardrobe hacking of the highest order. LEDs, iPads, green pigs and angry feathered fowl -- they're all present and accounted for in this year's Halloween opus. Here are a few of our favorite tech-themed costumes. If you've got some winners of your own, shoot me an e-mail or share in the comments section of this article. Above is Tyler Card's [fully functioning Nikon DSLR costume](http://tylercard.tumblr.com/post/11897923037/for-halloween-2011-i-made-a-fully-fuctional), quite possibly the most impressive outfit of the bunch (but let's be honest, it's pretty much impossible to choose favorites). Card mounted a DSLR on the inside of the costume's lens using a small, modified tripod. The shutter is triggered using a remote shutter release that's mounted under the shutter release button on the costume camera -- so, when the costume button is pressed, it actually snaps a picture. Card used a hot-shoe flash extension to situate an external flash above his head as the "pop-up flash," and a USB cable connects the camera to a laptop mounted inside the back of the costume. As photos are taken, they're played as a slideshow on the laptop's LCD screen, which he unscrewed and flipped backwards. Card told Wired.com that the costume is primarily made of cardboard, duct tape and spray paint. The lens is made from a 5-gallon paint bucket, whose lid acts as the lens cap. The lens is made of Plexiglas, and the flash diffuser is Plexiglas covered with window-frosting spray. Excluding the cost of the actual camera and computer, the costume only cost about $35 to make -- but it took about 40 hours to create. The toughest part? "Believe it or not, the most challenging part was cutting a circular piece of Plexiglas without having the proper tools," Card says. "It was very tedious getting it to fit snug, without having to tape it up." Another challenge: getting the costume on and off, which requires "a little help too."
02angry-birds-costumes
These three Angry Birds costumes were made by Katy Lundberg and submitted to the [Angry Birds Halloween Contest](https://www.facebook.com/angrybirds?sk=app_288805951132366) on Facebook. The costumes are made of chicken wire, spray foam, pipes, boxes and paint, among other supplies. I wonder if the kiddos inside these guys ended up playing bumper cars with their mobile game-themed costumery, launching themselves into one another sans explosions. The ever-addictive Angry Birds were a [hot costume idea](http://mashable.com/2011/10/30/angry-birds-costumes/) for this year's Halloween celebrations.
03ipad-2-facetime-costume
How do you make it look like a hole has been blasted through your torso, without the help of CG or movie magic? Simple. Use a pair of iPad 2's running FaceTime. Mark Rober cut holes out of the front and back of a white shirt, and surrounded each with gory-looking red paint. He duct-taped iPad 2s to the front and the back, then started a FaceTime video chat. The effect makes it look like there's a gaping hole through Rober's middle, as each iPad displays the image from the other side of his body. He carried a Wi-Fi hotspot around just in case he went somewhere where Wi-Fi wasn't available. At the Halloween party where Rober showed off his masterpiece, he said, "Everyone was seriously going nuts, and two people said it was 'the coolest thing I’ve ever seen.'" The costume idea isn't rocket science -- although if it were, it wouldn't be a problem for Rober. He's a mechanical engineer for NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
04deadmau5
A fan of Canadian electronic artist [Deadmau5](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deadmau5) created this replica Deadmau5 head for this year's Halloween. The costume incorporates [300 LEDs](https://www.facebook.com/Detroitmau5?sk=wall) on flexible RGB strips, which are powered by a 12-volt battery worn on a vest. The LEDs can glow and shine for up to 3.5 hours. There's also a cooling fan inside the mousey mask, so the wearer doesn't get too hot. It took [40 to 45 hours](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=elsuN6f1wj8) for YouTube user [niezur2300](http://www.youtube.com/user/niezur2300) to create this majestic piece of electronics, which was worn around Detroit this weekend.
05hypnotoad
ALL GLORY TO THE HYPNOTOAD! If you're not familiar, [Hypnotoad](http://futurama.wikia.com/wiki/Hypnotoad) is a character that makes appearances on the show Futurama. It's a toad-like creature with multicolored eyes that can hypnotize people and animals to great effect. This mesmerizing costume, made by redditor [desmondo](http://www.reddit.com/user/desmondo), features dual Plasma balls as eyes to create that mesmerizing, psychedelic effect Hypnotoad is known for.
06fallout-costume
Fans of the video game Fallout should get a kick out of this: A Fallout costume with what looks like a working Pip-Boy 3000. Valve videogame programmer [Matt Wood](https://plus.google.com/102197697767193925836/about) designed and constructed this homemade costume. He's wearing a military jumpsuit from eBay and carrying some spray-painted plastic guns as (fake) weapons. Wood created the Pip-Boy using an iPhone 3G. It's not actually interactive -- it's just [video playing on the phone](http://www.reddit.com/user/rocksockm). Still, pretty clever though! Woods might make an Arduino version that's actually interactive in the future. [More pictures](https://plus.google.com/photos/102197697767193925836/albums/5655052416800310417) detailing the construction of the Pip-Boy are available on Google+.
Joits07angry-birds-2
All right, I couldn't help myself: Here's another fun individual in an ingenius [Angry Birds costume](http://mashable.com/2011/10/30/angry-birds-costumes/#32157Brilliant-Construction). A very involved diorama surrounds the owner's green, pig-painted head, which is wisely donning a construction hat. You never know if Halloween revelers will decide to dismantle your costume and start chucking those angry feathered balls at your noggin. *Image: [Joits](http://www.flickr.com/photos/joits/5135349246/in/set-72157625286549750)/Flickr*
