This page is about the electronics and special effects in the castle and how you can do this too. If you want to learn more about this cardboard castle and how to build one that is all right here: The World's Greatest Cardboard Castle.

I have an easy tutorial showing you how to add LED's to your projects.

What this project is: It is a castle made completely out of cardboard.

What this project has in terms of special effects:

• A whole lot of LED lights in a variety of colors
• A drawbridge that uses a small DC motor
• A portcullis that goes up and down, controlled by a servo
• A cathedral with music that is stored and played on a small circuit board
• The cathedral double doors slowly open and closed - controlled by two servos
• A working catapult that uses a solenoid for power.
• The tower for the catapult actually rotates - controlled by a small DC motor

These are the exact LED's I bought from Amazon. I bought these for a couple of reasons. First off they were reallly cheap! It comes out to about ten cents per LED. Second there is a lot of them in different colors. With the selection I could experiment with color themes. Finally, these LED's all have a sinking resistor already attached. That saves time and effort.

The exact purchase I made on Amazon https://amzn.to/48CBg7E

DC motor geared, for the catapult turret rotation: https://amzn.to/3tNk0Oc

DC geared motor for drawbridge: https://amzn.to/4aI1DLp

Servo for Cathedral doors and portcullis (total of 3 used) https://amzn.to/41P2kOL

YOu need a controller for the servo:

This project took me a year to finish; and it is now finished! Yay!

Check out the world's greatest cardboard castle. It's all cardboard and it includes lights, motors, music and more! This is a great example of how amazing cardboard is. Includes a youtube video you can watch without leaving this website.

The World's Greatest Cardboard Castle