Yes, it’s a little late for Halloween, but before you throw out that rotting gourd sitting outside your front door, how about planning for next year’s festivities with a dragon-o-lantern?

The Thinking Cap is a piece of wearable signage that lets you display what’s on your mind. The hat uses a Teensy 2.0 connected to a Bluetooth radio to allow the wearer to update the message on the fly, letting the room know what their thinking at that instant.

The Teensy can receive messages using the Bluetooth serial port protocol.

The result is a bright message circling around the user’s head, which can be updated with a smartphone over Bluetooth.

This year for Halloween, The Geek Group, decided to take a very different approach to outreach. Instead of making animatronics, or converting their giant (seriously HUGE) space into a haunted house, they held an event called “Computers Not Candy” where they teamed up with a large local company to bring 100 tablet computers to 100 youths.

So, to get into the spirit, we have pulled together some of our freakishly (vintage, but no less) great Halloween-inspired gadgets.

Maybe you’ve been looking for a good excuse to try out an e-textiles project because you just can’t see yourself wearing an illuminated business suit to work. I feel you. But it’s time to put the tweed behind us; it’s almost Halloween! What better time to try your hand at a twinkling, illuminated project? LED wings make an awesome accent to your costume or a fun project to share with your little fairy or dragon! (Just make sure you don’t let your kids do the melty bits!)