Gunn High Robotics Team Lends Ghostly Hands to

Fairmeadow School’s Halloween Haunted House

Public Invited to “Scaremeadow” Haunted House October 24th and 25th

Palo Alto, California -- Fairmeadow Elementary School’s Haunted House uses more than witches, ghouls and skeletons to stir its annual brew of Halloween fun and fright. The Gunn High School Robotics Team is developing special pneumatic effects, code-named “Plunging Hands” and "Freshman in a Box," and is using donated rack-mounted computers to design a new control panel for this year’s innovative incarnation of the famous Fairmeadow Haunted House.

The public is cordially invited to visit the 15th Annual Scaremeadow Haunted House at Fairmeadow Elementary School, 500 East Meadow Drive, Palo Alto, California, on Friday, October 24, from 6:00 to 9:00 p.m. and on Saturday, October 25, from 1:00 to 4:00 p.m. and from 6:00 to 9:00 p.m.

Gunn Robotics Team members have also designed and built a robotic haunted mansion that will be installed and on display outside the Scaremeadow Haunted House. The outdoor mansion features heads that pop up, a cauldron stirred by a floating hand, a guillotine window, and more gore galore. The entire project is built onto a trailer that Gunn students pull across town in the dead of night. The mansion stands two stories high and is programmed to run autonomously.

This haunted mansion will be available for one lucky family to put on display at their residence on Halloween night. A silent auction for the Gunn haunted mansion will be held during the Scaremeadow Haunted House festivities.

This is the third year that the Gunn Robotics Team has contributed technical assistance to the Fairmeadow Haunted House. The team, made up of about 50 students from a variety of academic backgrounds, develops and donates controls similar to those used on the pneumatic and electronic devices used in robotic competitions.